Authenticity is the new luxury?: Market myths and the reproduction of consumer culture

摘要

The paper examines the construction of the myth of luxury in the specific case of \udchampagne. Champagne has a global and long standing reputation as a luxury product; yet \udchanges in recent decades have challenged both its status as a prestige product, and \udestablished notions of what constitutes an elite champagne. Drawing from interviews with \udchampagne producers and an analysis of media representations of champagne, the paper \udexamines how—and to what effect—the myth of luxury is constructed. \udCombining a semiotic approach to myth with a cultural field approach to the study of \udconsmer culture, the paper provides an overview of the champagne field and its \udcontextualizng factors: structural properties and changes in the market; a new nexus of \udproducers, consumer tastes and sites for the public affirmation of champagne’s status; and \udmedia texts that circulate a field-¬‐specific discourse linking champagne to good taste. \udThe analysis identifies, first, how champagne’s product myth of luxury is anchored in \udparticular material and symbolic properties. Second, the analysis disentangles two different \udarticulations of the meta myth of luxury: that of exclusivity and authenticity. These two \udarticulations are typically conflated with particular organizational modes of production, \udcreating an either/or flexibility to the meta myth of luxury, and raising both \udradical and conservative implications of the possibility that authenticity is the new luxury.