Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Workshop 3. The Geography of Luxury: East, West and Global Directions

University of Warwick, 7-9 May 2014

organised by Giorgio Riello, Rosa Salzberg and Qing Wang(WBS) img_0747.jpg

This workshop focuses on some of the questions - What is the relationship between Western luxury and globalisation? Why for a long time were Oriental goods seen as luxurious in Europe? What are
the challenges today of selling Western luxury to China, India and the Middle East? Why have
certain nations had a key role in shaping the notion of luxury, and can we now talk of a ‘globalised’
or ‘cosmopolitan’ luxury?

Programme

Wednesday 7 May 2014 – Institute of Advanced Study, Millburn House

The Geographies of Luxury: Sumptuary Laws in a Comparative Framework

10.30 Arrival/Coffee

11.00-12.45 – Session 1. Sumptuary Laws in Early Modern Europe (Chair: Ulinka Rublack, Cambridge University)

- Maria Hayward, University of Southampton, ‘Luxury Goods Listed in the English Sumptuary Law’
- Eva Andersson, Gothenburg University, ‘The Dangers of Luxury in Swedish Sumptuary Law’
- Catherine Kovesi, University of Melbourne, 'Sumptuary Law in Italy: General Characteristics.'

12.45-13.30 – Lunch

13.30-15.30 – Session 2. Sumptuary Laws in Renaissance Italy (Chair: John Styles, University of Hertfordshire)

- Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, University of Bologna, ‘Sumptuary Laws: A Repository of Knowledge’
- Elisa Tosi Brandi, University of Bologna, ‘Tailors and Sumptuary Laws’
- Giulio Biondi, University of Bologna, ‘The Venetian Sumptuary Laws in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century’
- Luca Molà, Giorgio Riello, and Beatrice Mezzogori, ‘Sumptuary Prosecutions in Sixteenth-Century Padova’
 
15.30-16.00 – Coffee
 

16.00-17.30 – Session 3 – Sumptuary Laws in Asia and the Americas (Chair: Dorothy Ko, Columbia University)

- Rebecca Earle, Warwick, ‘Sumptuary Laws in the Early Modern Hispanic World’
- Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston College, ‘Sumptuary Laws in Early Modern South Asia: Accounting for an Absence’
- Beverly Lemire, University of Alberta, ‘Fashioning Material Worlds: Cloth, Clothing and Politics in Tokugawa Japan and Early Modern Europe’

17.30-18.00 – Final Discussion

(18.00-19.00 - Advisory board – for members and advisory members only)

19.30-20.00 – Drinks for participants at Scarman

20.00 – Dinner for participants at Scarman

Thursday 8 May 2014 am – M3/4, Warwick Business School

The Geographies of Luxury: New Doctoral Research

9.00 – Coffee

9.30-12.15 – Luxury Postgraduate Workshop
Chaired by Karolina Hutkova, Warwick
Discussant: Peter McNeil, UTS and Stockholm

- Jola Pellumbi, Kings College London, ‘The Luxury of Power: The Dress of the Procurators of Saint Mark in late 16th Century Venice’
- Giulia Galastro, University of Cambridge, ‘Strange fruits and spreading roots: the hybrid heritage of Genoese mezzari, 1690-c.1800’
- Laura Dimitrio, University of Bologna, ‘The Italian Fashion and the East: the Case of Mila Schӧn’
- Short break (10.45-11.00)
- Josephine de Stael, Royal College of Art, 'The Luxury Model'
- Claudia Newton, Warwick Manufacturing, ‘Convergences of Luxury and Sustainability in Design Theory’
- Rosemary Watlin, London College of Fashion, 'Technology for Sustainable Luxury'

12.15-13.00 – Lunch

Thursday 8 May 2014 pm – M3/4, Warwick Business School

The Geographies of Luxury: East and West

13.00-13.15 – Welcome by the Professor Mark Taylor, Dean WBS

13.30-15.00 – Session 1. The Materiality of Luxury Across Cultures (Chair: Rosa Salzberg, Warwick)

- Michael Bycroft, Max Planck Institute, Berlin, ‘“Les merveilles des Indes": Eastern Gems and the Quest for Preciousness in French Gemology, 1600-1800’
- Dorothy Ko, Barnard College, Columbia University, ‘Skill as Luxury in Early Modern Global China’
- Beverly Lemire, University of Alberta, ‘In the Wake of Global Trade: Luxury Diffusion & Meanings along Maritime Trade Routes, c. 1600-1800’

15.00-15.30 Coffee

15.30-16.30 – Keynote – Maxine Berg, Warwick, ‘The Merest Shadows of a Commodity’: Asian Luxury Goods in Early Modern Europe (Chair: Luca Molà, EUI)

16.30-18.30 – Session 2 Luxury and Cosmopolitan Consumers (Chair: Catherine Kovesi)

- Sarah Cheang, RCA/V&A, ‘Repulsion de Lux: Sex, Death and Disgust in Interwar Chinoiserie Interiors’
- Wessie Ling, Northumbria University, TBC
- Maurizio Marinelli, University of Sussex, ‘The Transnational Politics of the Copy and the Real: Exporting Luxury Brands to China by Domesticating Foreignness’
- Sarah Teasley, RCA, ‘What Geopolitics can do to Kettles and Carpets: Regional Luxury Production and its Consumers'

19.30 – Dinner for participants, Panorama Room, Rootes Building

Friday 9 May 2014 am – M3/4, Warwick Business School

The Geographies of Luxury: Global Perspectives luxury1

 

9.00 – Coffee

9.30-11.00 – Session 1. The Business of Luxury in a Global Perspective (Chair: Giorgio Riello)

- Qing Wang, WBS, ‘The Desired Exclusivity of Luxury Brands and the Unwanted “Trickle Down” Effect of Counterfeiting’
- Rahul Kapoor, RRS Enterprise Investments, ‘The Difference in India between Price and Value of Luxury’
- Djurdja Bartlett, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, ‘Oligarch Chic and the Principle
of Excess’

 

11.00-11.30 – Coffee

11.30-13.00 – Session 2. Luxury Brands and Global Competition (Chair: Peter McNeil)

- David Arnott and Navdeep Athwal, WBS, ‘Consumption, Status and Power in an Online Luxury-Timepiece-Collector Community’
- Paurav Shukla, GCU London, ‘Exploring Luxury Value Perceptions in Western Developed and Eastern Emerging Markets’
- Elisa Montaguti and Alessandra Zammit, University of Bologna, ‘Which Products are Best Suited for Customization? Implications for the Luxury Industry’

13.00-14.00 – lunch

Friday 9 May 2014 pm M3/4, Warwick Business School

The Geographies of Luxury: The Britishnes of British Luxury

 

14.00-15.00 – Keynote – Lifen Zhang, Associate Editor, Financial Times and Editor-in-Chief, FTChinese.com, ‘FT in China: The British Luxury of Special Kind’ (Chair: Qing Wang)

15.00-15.30 – Coffee

15.30-17.30– The Britishness of British Luxury (Chairs: Giorgio Riello and Qing Wang)

A panel discussion including Lifen Zhang, Financial Times; Andy Parker, Jaguar Global Marketing Communication; Jonathan Faiers, Winchester School of Art; Peter McNeil, UTS and University of Stockholm; Paurav Shukla, GCU London; Caroline Evans, London College of Fashion.

17.30-18.30 – Reception

19.00-21.00 – Dinner for participants at Radcliffe