The Essential View: When we buy luxury items, we typically buy them in pristine condition. It’s part of the luxury experience. But that pristineness can create a contradiction: the more beautiful and expensive the item, the more reluctant we may be to use it as it was intended. The first dent, crease, stain, pill, or scratch may feel especially painful because it means the item is no longer perfect. But it may also be the beginning of a more realistic relationship with the things we own.
The dent
Last year, I bought my first piece of luxury aluminum luggage: a silver carry-on. It was superior to my previous luggage in every way: lighter, more durable, smoother-rolling, better laid-out inside, and more attractive. I bought it while overseas and I was a little giddy, actually.
Obviously I wasn’t going to check it. I mean… obviously. Even the first time I put in the overhead bin was a little worrisome. What if I dented it putting it in or taking it out? But that went fine, and there were just the most minor of scuffs here and there as I used it over the next couple of months.
And then I was faced with the dreaded gate check.
I knew in the back of my mind that given enough time, at some point I’d have to gate check my bag. I simply avoided thinking about it. And then I was boarding a regional jet and got the dreaded “everything larger than a backpack or a purse has to be gate checked”.
I remember sitting at my window seat, watching to see if I could see how my bag was handled as the plane was being loaded, but I couldn’t. The same was true with unloading at my destination. Finally it came off the plane and looked fine. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Then I got home and found the dent. Not a large one, not very noticeable at all, but it was there. And I knew it was there.
I ran over events in my mind:
Why didn’t I insist on carrying it on? I’d seen some people with bags almost as large as mine take them on the plane and put them in the overhead storage.
Why did I agree to take a regional jet in the first place? I could have chosen a different routing and been on regular jets the entire way.
Why did I even bring it? I still had my old carry-on; if I knew I was going to be on a puddle-jumper, couldn’t I have just used my former bag?
I get it. This all sounds pretty silly. That’s because it is silly. It’s silly to buy an item that is designed and built to withstand abuse and then worry about abusing it.
Oh, but wait—there’s more.
Not long after this happened, I was once again overseas and in the lobby of my hotel, I spotted a family checking in. They all had the same brand of luggage that I did, the same product line, but in both carry-on and check-in sizes. And every piece of luggage they had was protected in a clear plastic sleeve. Think of the clear plastic sofa covers in your grandmother’s house back in the day and you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about. And I found myself thinking, just for a moment, that maybe that was a pretty good idea.
Image: BLU341
Rationally, I knew it wasn’t. Luggage is made to be used. It’s made to take what travel dishes out and endure. The plastic sleeves added complexity and weight. And while they’d protect the luggage from minor scrapes and scratches, if something was going to dent it, it was going to dent it.
But emotionally? Wouldn’t it be nice to keep my luggage in pristine shape? That’s what I felt emotionally. And honestly, part of me still does.
The tyranny of pristineness
What was made to be used should be used, and not locked up.
Go back to that first small dent after my regional jet flight. Why did it matter so much? It didn’t need to be repaired—nothing about the suitcase’s usefulness had changed.
That first small dent mattered more than it otherwise would have precisely because it was the first. The suitcase didn’t function any differently, but something about it had changed permanently, in a way I didn’t like.
This is one of the stranger contradictions of luxury. We pay more for things partly because we expect to use them for a long time, then become anxious about the evidence that we’ve used them at all.
How does this happen?
