There's a book called The Luxury Strategy, which articulates uniquely well what sets luxury products apart from premium products. It's counterintuitive and expressly anti-commercial. Luxury is not defined by ergonomics, comfort or optimisation. Quite the opposite. It's a hard read at first, because it feels like the author is inventing to extract a category out of thin air. That resistance you feel when reading it is precisely the point.
It's the friction. You have to sacrifice something. Price is a part of it, but it's not enough (and often having the money to buy it is far from enough).
It's especially interesting to me because it's the one elusive place where art and design are allowed to live together, free from the need to be justified, explained or optimised.
The Ferrari Luce ain't it.
"Is a Ferrari a perfect car? Anyone who has driven it knows that it is not. A Ferrari has fragilities that are part of its charm, its weaknesses as a mechanical beast that, like its rearing horse emblem, is not easily mastered. You have to know how to drive it, accept its vagaries, its unique character.
A Ferrari is anything but a perfect car (...); that is why people would do anything to own one. Every model forces its owner to accept its flaws."
