Lynn Barber

Splashing the cash at VIP nightclubs is now the favourite recreation of the rich

It’s not what you own but what you can throw away that’s become the great status signifier. But for how much longer?

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issue 20 June 2020

The world described in this book is weird enough anyway, but reading about it during lockdown is positively surreal. It’s about VIP nightclubs, mainly in New York, but also in Miami, Cannes, St Tropez or wherever rich people congregate. Ashley Mears is a professor of sociology, as she likes to remind us with references to Bourdieu, Durkheim, Veblen, etc, but mainly she is a very good reporter.

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