Luxury escort
Discerning the ‘luxury’ in ‘luxury escort’
The influence of popular film on the cultural imagination runs deep and, when it comes to creating and defining the luxury escort of today, no single movie is more important than Pretty Woman (1990). Here, the transformation to luxury escort is a metamorphosis fuelled by money. Tellingly, Roberts only becomes the ‘Pretty Woman’ of the movie’s title when that transformation is complete. In Pretty Woman, luxury is, then, a function of conspicuous consumption, whether it’s long, scented bubble baths in expensive hotels; gorgeous silken lingerie; expert up-do hair blowouts; racks of designer dresses, diamond necklaces fit for a princess; or the chauffeur-driven limousine for the final ride home.
And, three decades after its release, the consumer-led notion of the high-end, luxury escort, as seen in Pretty Woman, continues to hold the popular imagination in its thrall. Values and tastes have changed, of course, since the global recession sparked off by the collapse of Lehmans, and then cemented by a worldwide lockdown, several international wars, rising mortgages, an energy crisis, and a cost-of-living crisis. Most likely, we’re not as gaudy as we once were in the yuppie era of the Eighties and early Nineties; we’re a bit more knowing and wary of branding; we’re more healthily cautious about ascribing value and meaning to things and would probably rather prioritise experiences instead.
Yet the escort industry, as a whole, may not have moved as quickly. Too often, today’s luxury escort in London, the wild-child Pretty Woman in the little black number, carrying a designer handbag, with the bouffant hair and the slick of red across her lips, looks increasingly anachronous, starts to look – dare I even say it – like a retro fantasy your granddad might have had, rather than corresponding to anything contemporary.
But where does this leave luxury? Truthfully, luxury was never what the Eighties marketed it to be, never simply about the things you could walk into a shop to buy, or the meanings that those things accrued when seen by others. For the “work hard, play hard” culture of late capitalism, that was an easy sell, but the very notion of luxury has forever been more substantial, more complex.
One of the earliest uses of the word ‘luxurie’, from medieval times, will be familiar to readers today. In his “Monk’s Tale”, Geoffrey Chaucer describes how ‘Proud Emperor Nero, with all his worldly ‘luxurie’, beautified himself and dressed himself with the costly purple dyes of Tyre’. We’ve inherited that ‘luxurie’: it’s the same, showy, expensive opulence we already know. Elsewhere in The Canterbury Tales, however, a different meaning emerges: ‘luxurie’ is synonymous and used interchangeably with ‘lecherye’, that strong, irrepressible hunger for gratification. Excavated and freed from the past, the very concept of luxury becomes so much more than about branded consumer goods. Luxury is the experience of being left utterly satisfied and, yet, having more, and wanting more. Luxury is positively dangerous, particularly in a religious context. Luxury is nothing less than an experience of excess that is, at once, daring; bold; enticing; seductive; in a word, more than any man deserves, or should ordinarily have.
Today we live in more relaxed, more permissive times where luxury is something you can have, if you know enough to choose it. And, when I describe myself as a ‘London luxury escort’, I would like to think that I do so with the fullest meaning that word has always carried.
In the interests of full disclosure, I turn away far more clients than I take on: that’s only to be expected, given the nature and amount of mutual trust required in this line of work. If we do meet, however, you will, as a matter of course, find me punctual and presentable; and you will soon rest easy, assured of my utmost discretion. You’ll find me relaxed, unhurried, and personable. You’ll find me polite, articulate, and present.
But then comes the magic, the luxury. You’ll find me empathetic, caring, and understanding. You’ll find me fast-becoming attuned to your needs; adept at seeing your desires; touching yearnings that you never even knew were there; and soon filling you up in ways you simply did not know even existed.
Welcome to the definitive word in luxury.
Welcome to Tangere.
With love,
Sarah
x
