From fashion houses to cathedrals

This text aims to show, following Georges Bataille, how capitalism today, through the luxury industry, is indeed harnessing and more specifically transforming a historical form of luxury. The “unproductive expenditure”, a characteristic of Gothic cathedrals’ pomp, has been turned into a heritage source of profit, in the guise of a host of merchandises. The aim of this paper is to examine the conditions which account for this joint historical and economic reversal.