Having an appetite for beauty but a limited budget has led me to think a lot about luxury. Vogue magazine is happy to show me spreads of thousand-dollar dresses on models reclining on sofas in fancy resorts and pronounce this as luxury. Yes, taste is individual. But it seems luxury is pretty well defined, if you believe the marketing. All you have to do is go to Barneys and proffer a credit card, and luxury is yours.

I refuse to believe that luxury has to be expensive. For instance, with clothing, it’s not unusual that a five-dollar vintage pencil skirt has six darts on both the front and back, recognizing that a woman is three-dimensional. You’d be hard-pressed to find such craftsmanship today, even in the off-the-rack Chanel. A beautifully poached, pasture-raised hen’s egg bursts with luxury (and is something I bet most Gucci evening dress owners rarely experience). Tea in a vintage Japanese ceramic tea cup culled from Goodwill is luxury, too…

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