Seán Williams ► Dr Seán Williams is Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History at the University of Sheffield.
Pictured ► ‘Welcome to Wedgwood’: a celebration of colourful lifestyle & the inspirational world of eclectic originals around the globe.
n a sunny, spring day I’m sitting on my front step at home in Sheffield, tasked with taking the long view on luxury and culture over the centuries. With thinking beyond the particularity — and the platitudes — of the pandemic. My pen is poised over a handmade Italian notepad my boyfriend had given me as a keepsake. I take another sip of strong coffee from a Wedgwood cup with a glaring, campy pattern. It’s a rococo-inspired design I hold dear, if with a dash of irony. Such a scene of life (still) in lockdown seems a world apart from the boutiques and venues I was able to visit when making the BBC radio documentary, The Deluxe Edition, a couple of years ago — a programme in which I’d wanted to understand the allure of the
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luxurious. Historically, the past year has been unlike any other. But in other respects, there are surprising similarities with the age that shaped our modern luxury consumer culture across Europe: the late-18th and early-19th centuries. That era gave rise to the word ‘keepsake’; the term ‘de luxe’ made its way from French into other European languages; and Wedgwood’s wares were marketed to popular acclaim here in Britain, on the continent and further afield. Around 1800, luxuries were defined as pleasures, conveniences and curiosities. For enthusiasts, they enabled the expression of individual personality and the progress of civilisation. In other words, the self and society were projected on to material things like never before.
