Luxury | Inconspicuous consumption | Economist.com:

The number of luxury buyers in the developed world is also being swelled by two other trends. First, consumers are increasingly adopting a ?trading up, trading down? shopping strategy. Many traditional mid-market shoppers are abandoning middle-of-the-range products for a mix of lots of extremely cheap goods and a few genuine luxuries that they would once have thought out of their price league.
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But perhaps the true symbol of exalted status in the era of mass luxury is conspicuous non-consumption. This is not just the growing tendency of the very rich to dress scruffily and drive beaten-up cars, as described by David Brooks in ?Bobos in Paradise?. It is showing that you have more money than you know how to spend. So, for example, philanthropy is increasingly fashionable…

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