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Pročitaj cijeli članak o povijesti luksuznih stvari.

Cleopatra’s Barge

History’s first superyacht owner was Ptolemy IV, who ruled Egypt from 221 to 205 B.C.E. Among his royal fleet was a 300-foot catamaran that towered 60 feet above the Nile, propelled by thousands of enslaved men. But it was his descendant Cleopatra, reigning nearly two centuries later, who has captured the imaginations of poets, playwrights, and Hollywood producers. Cleopatra’s barge was the first nautical fashion statement, a blazing vessel that included silver oars, colorful sails, and a gold-encrusted hull. 

Shakespeare’s reference in Antony and Cleopatra was so inspirational to George Crowninshield Jr., who hailed from a wealthy merchant family in Salem, Mass., that he named his yacht Cleopatra’s Barge when it launched in 1816. At a time when no one cruised for mere recreation, the 83-foot schooner was considered America’s first superyacht. The wooden hull and ostentatious interior reportedly cost $100,000, or $2 million today. 

Inside, Cleopatra’s Barge was a pleasure palace of ornate paneling, gold beams, velvet ropes, fireplaces, and chandeliers. The formal dining room used the best porcelain, silver, and crystal. The year after taking delivery, Crowninshield and his crew sailed for Europe and, as a goodwill gesture, opened the vessel to the public. While it was in port at Barcelona, thousands boarded. Crowninshield died seven weeks after returning to Salem, and Cleopatra’s Barge was eventually sold to Hawaii’s King Kamehameha II, who owned it until it wrecked on Kauai off 1824. 

Despite just eight years afloat, it established a precedent for modern gigayachts, from Aristotle Onassis’s lavish 325-foot Christina O, converted from a WWII Canadian naval frigate, on up to Jeff Bezos’s recently launched 417-foot Koru, the world’s biggest sailing yacht. 

Cupholder

For many car enthusiasts, the cupholder represents the beginning of the end. And, fair enough: It’s certainly more down-market than a saloon’s glossy, veneered seat-back tray—you don’t need a receptacle for your Champagne flute when your driver is working the wheel—and it doesn’t exactly send the message that your car is a dedicated performance machine, which is why elite German and Italian brands pretended it didn’t exist until buyers forced their hands. It was an American invention (naturally) that debuted in minivans (of course) in the ’80s and has since proliferated, well, everywhere, from Porsches and Ferraris to freaking motorcycles. 

But the real genius of the cupholder is the way in which it foresaw the automotive cockpit not as a workstation but as a home-away-from-home that coddled the pilot via creature comforts. Today you can dictate your grocery list to Apple CarPlay, delve into a relaxation session in your Mercedes EQS, or play Mario Kart on your Tesla’s touchscreen, and things will only get comfier whenever true self-driving tech arrives—thanks to the humble cupholder. 

Adler Bicycle

When 23-year-old Bauhaus graduate Marcel Breuer returned to the school to teach in 1925, one of the first things he did was purchase an Adler bicycle. The young lecturer and master carpenter took long rides around the city of Dessau, where the Bauhaus had relocated from Weimar. Even though his medium of choice was wood, he couldn’t help admiring the bike’s tubular-steel frame, which was durable but also flexible and lightweight. He wondered if it could be fashioned into furniture. 

Adler rejected his idea to collaborate, so the budding designer decided to go it alone—though he needed a plumber to help weld the tubing. The first model had a back, a seat, and arms made from strips of canvas stretched across the nickel-plated frame, eliminating traditional cushioning and creating a sleek new silhouette that Breuer named the B3. Although he would tinker with the radical design for a couple of years, with the B3 (later renamed the Wassily chair in honor of his friend, abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky), Breuer had hit on a pared-down, easy-to-produce piece of furniture that would trigger a stylistic shift in the industry and help to usher modernism into offices and living rooms on a global scale

Superfakes 

Walk along Canal Street in New York City today and you’ll see cheap knockoff designer handbags for sale with an asking price of 50 bucks or so. Ask around, and you’ll likely be whisked into a secret back room to review pricier counterfeits known as “superfakes.” While a regular fake is a dubious attempt to replicate a white-hot design, a superfake is a bag made by the original manufacturer as prescribed that somehow ends up selling on the black market, often simply because it “vanishes” during production. 

Superfakes are, for all intents and purposes, the real thing, but ones sold via an unauthorized channel. Still, for a certain type of consumer, it’s an appealing compromise, a chance to fight back against status-symbol-driven price hikes. 

So how did this come to be? As the luxury sector has mushroomed, many of even the priciest marques have moved production offshore, mostly to China. But when factories are far from a brand’s HQ and make thousands of bags, it’s easy for a few to “disappear.” They might be marked as damaged or second quality, when they’re simply earmarked for illegitimate sale. 

The rise of the superfake has coincided with a change in luxury retail: Once, staffers at high-end boutiques were career employees, as expert about the brand as the CEO or head designer would be. As fashion houses have expanded, staffing at scale has become complicated: Those brought in are often far less knowledgeable about, let alone invested in, the product they are there to sell—or not sell, as actually buying a bag legitimately has gotten so much harder due to supply issues. They’re much easier to fool with a pristine superfake, apologetically returned after the holidays for a refund by someone who seems trustworthy. That superfake then enters the supply chain, newly endorsed as authentic. The fact that many brands have rescinded their official repair programs for this type of leather goods—another method of laundering illicit items—is a tacit sign of anxiety around the problem. 

The Mirror

By the 15th century, one Venetian mirror could cost as much as a naval ship, so precious was the skill of the mercury-manipulating, glassmaking craftsmen there. Venice fiercely kept the lucrative industry classified: The workers who made the reflective wonders moved in 1291 to the island of Murano—better to keep safe from spies—and guildsmen were sworn not to spill on pain of death.

When Louis XIV of France wanted to create what would become the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, he naturally turned to the Venetians, using his vast fortune to bribe a handful of craftsmen to defect, smuggling them and their families out of the republic. La Serenissima retorted by sending an assassin to France; two of those workmen mysteriously wound up dead. The secret, however, had finally been leaked.

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Pročitaj cijeli članak o povijesti luksuznih stvari.

Cleopatra’s Barge

History’s first superyacht owner was Ptolemy IV, who ruled Egypt from 221 to 205 B.C.E. Among his royal fleet was a 300-foot catamaran that towered 60 feet above the Nile, propelled by thousands of enslaved men. But it was his descendant Cleopatra, reigning nearly two centuries later, who has captured the imaginations of poets, playwrights, and Hollywood producers. Cleopatra’s barge was the first nautical fashion statement, a blazing vessel that included silver oars, colorful sails, and a gold-encrusted hull. 

Shakespeare’s reference in Antony and Cleopatra was so inspirational to George Crowninshield Jr., who hailed from a wealthy merchant family in Salem, Mass., that he named his yacht Cleopatra’s Barge when it launched in 1816. At a time when no one cruised for mere recreation, the 83-foot schooner was considered America’s first superyacht. The wooden hull and ostentatious interior reportedly cost $100,000, or $2 million today. 

Inside, Cleopatra’s Barge was a pleasure palace of ornate paneling, gold beams, velvet ropes, fireplaces, and chandeliers. The formal dining room used the best porcelain, silver, and crystal. The year after taking delivery, Crowninshield and his crew sailed for Europe and, as a goodwill gesture, opened the vessel to the public. While it was in port at Barcelona, thousands boarded. Crowninshield died seven weeks after returning to Salem, and Cleopatra’s Barge was eventually sold to Hawaii’s King Kamehameha II, who owned it until it wrecked on Kauai off 1824. 

Despite just eight years afloat, it established a precedent for modern gigayachts, from Aristotle Onassis’s lavish 325-foot Christina O, converted from a WWII Canadian naval frigate, on up to Jeff Bezos’s recently launched 417-foot Koru, the world’s biggest sailing yacht. 

Cupholder

For many car enthusiasts, the cupholder represents the beginning of the end. And, fair enough: It’s certainly more down-market than a saloon’s glossy, veneered seat-back tray—you don’t need a receptacle for your Champagne flute when your driver is working the wheel—and it doesn’t exactly send the message that your car is a dedicated performance machine, which is why elite German and Italian brands pretended it didn’t exist until buyers forced their hands. It was an American invention (naturally) that debuted in minivans (of course) in the ’80s and has since proliferated, well, everywhere, from Porsches and Ferraris to freaking motorcycles. 

But the real genius of the cupholder is the way in which it foresaw the automotive cockpit not as a workstation but as a home-away-from-home that coddled the pilot via creature comforts. Today you can dictate your grocery list to Apple CarPlay, delve into a relaxation session in your Mercedes EQS, or play Mario Kart on your Tesla’s touchscreen, and things will only get comfier whenever true self-driving tech arrives—thanks to the humble cupholder. 

Adler Bicycle

When 23-year-old Bauhaus graduate Marcel Breuer returned to the school to teach in 1925, one of the first things he did was purchase an Adler bicycle. The young lecturer and master carpenter took long rides around the city of Dessau, where the Bauhaus had relocated from Weimar. Even though his medium of choice was wood, he couldn’t help admiring the bike’s tubular-steel frame, which was durable but also flexible and lightweight. He wondered if it could be fashioned into furniture. 

Adler rejected his idea to collaborate, so the budding designer decided to go it alone—though he needed a plumber to help weld the tubing. The first model had a back, a seat, and arms made from strips of canvas stretched across the nickel-plated frame, eliminating traditional cushioning and creating a sleek new silhouette that Breuer named the B3. Although he would tinker with the radical design for a couple of years, with the B3 (later renamed the Wassily chair in honor of his friend, abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky), Breuer had hit on a pared-down, easy-to-produce piece of furniture that would trigger a stylistic shift in the industry and help to usher modernism into offices and living rooms on a global scale

Superfakes 

Walk along Canal Street in New York City today and you’ll see cheap knockoff designer handbags for sale with an asking price of 50 bucks or so. Ask around, and you’ll likely be whisked into a secret back room to review pricier counterfeits known as “superfakes.” While a regular fake is a dubious attempt to replicate a white-hot design, a superfake is a bag made by the original manufacturer as prescribed that somehow ends up selling on the black market, often simply because it “vanishes” during production. 

Superfakes are, for all intents and purposes, the real thing, but ones sold via an unauthorized channel. Still, for a certain type of consumer, it’s an appealing compromise, a chance to fight back against status-symbol-driven price hikes. 

So how did this come to be? As the luxury sector has mushroomed, many of even the priciest marques have moved production offshore, mostly to China. But when factories are far from a brand’s HQ and make thousands of bags, it’s easy for a few to “disappear.” They might be marked as damaged or second quality, when they’re simply earmarked for illegitimate sale. 

The rise of the superfake has coincided with a change in luxury retail: Once, staffers at high-end boutiques were career employees, as expert about the brand as the CEO or head designer would be. As fashion houses have expanded, staffing at scale has become complicated: Those brought in are often far less knowledgeable about, let alone invested in, the product they are there to sell—or not sell, as actually buying a bag legitimately has gotten so much harder due to supply issues. They’re much easier to fool with a pristine superfake, apologetically returned after the holidays for a refund by someone who seems trustworthy. That superfake then enters the supply chain, newly endorsed as authentic. The fact that many brands have rescinded their official repair programs for this type of leather goods—another method of laundering illicit items—is a tacit sign of anxiety around the problem. 

The Mirror

By the 15th century, one Venetian mirror could cost as much as a naval ship, so precious was the skill of the mercury-manipulating, glassmaking craftsmen there. Venice fiercely kept the lucrative industry classified: The workers who made the reflective wonders moved in 1291 to the island of Murano—better to keep safe from spies—and guildsmen were sworn not to spill on pain of death.

When Louis XIV of France wanted to create what would become the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, he naturally turned to the Venetians, using his vast fortune to bribe a handful of craftsmen to defect, smuggling them and their families out of the republic. La Serenissima retorted by sending an assassin to France; two of those workmen mysteriously wound up dead. The secret, however, had finally been leaked.

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