The first ever global history of luxury, from Roman villas to Russian oligarchs: a sparkling story of novelty, excess, extravagance, and indulgence through the centuries

• 1: Luxury, Antiquity, and the Antique


• 2: The Courts, the Church, and Medieval and Renaissance Luxury


• 3: Luxury and the Orient


• 4: Housing Luxury: From the Hotel Particulier to the Penthouse


• 5: Luxury and the Fashionable Body


• 6: Jet Set Life: From Trans-Atlantic to Global Elites


• 7: The Chic of Poverty: The Minimalism of Luxury


• 8: Everything that Money Can Buy? Manipulating Luxury


• 9: Has Luxury Lost its Lustre?


• Further Reading


• Notes


• Index

Peter McNeil is Professor of Design History at the University of Technology Sydney and Professor of Fashion Studies at Stockholm University. Trained as an art and design historian, he works mainly on eighteenth-century western Europe and on twentieth century Anglo-American topics ranging from fashion to the politics of the domestic interior.
Giorgio Riello is the author and editor of several books on the history of fashion, dress, and textiles including the best-selling edited collection Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers (in collaboration with Peter McNeil) and Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (2013). He is currently Professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick.