"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
There are books that entertain us, books that challenge us, and books that seem to have been waiting patiently for the moment in which we happen to read them.
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of the latter.
Published in 1890, Wilde's only novel is a story about beauty, youth, desire and the consequences of living for appearances. At its centre is Dorian Gray, a young man whose extraordinary beauty becomes both his gift and his curse. When he wishes that his portrait might age in his place, while he remains forever young, the portrait begins to bear the visible marks of the life he chooses to live.
It is a gothic story, a philosophical novel and, in many ways, a warning about what happens when the exterior and the interior are allowed to become completely disconnected.
But for this month's Deed Book Club, there is another reason to return to it.
Because The Picture of Dorian Gray asks a question that feels remarkably contemporary:
What is something really worth?
The price of everything, and the value of nothing
The line that immediately stood out to us is spoken by Lord Henry:
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
In the novel, Lord Henry is talking about a piece of old brocade.
But the thought reaches far beyond fabric.
Price is easy to understand.
It is a number.
It can be printed on a label, displayed online, compared between two products and used to determine whether something is considered expensive or affordable.
Value is different.
Value can be craftsmanship.
It can be the time someone spent making something properly.
It can be the skill that took years to develop.
It can be the decision to use a material because it has a lower impact.
It can be knowing that no animal had to suffer for something to be beautiful.
It can be the ability to repair, refill, reuse or keep something for years rather than replacing it next season.
It can be knowing where something came from and who made it.
It can be the feeling that what you have bought reflects something you believe.
None of these things necessarily appear on a price tag.
And yet they can be the very things that make an object valuable.
This is one of the ideas at the heart of conscious consumption.
Price tells us what something costs to buy. Value asks us what it is worth keeping.
Beauty is not the problem
It would be easy to read The Picture of Dorian Gray as a warning against vanity.
But Wilde's relationship with beauty is more complicated than that.
He was fascinated by beauty. His writing is filled with colour, texture, flowers, perfume, interiors, clothing, art, music and beautiful objects.
Lord Henry famously tells Dorian:
“Beauty is a form of Genius - is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation.”
There is something important in this.
Beauty matters.
We know this instinctively.
A beautiful room can change the way we feel when we enter it. A beautifully made object can make an everyday ritual feel special. The scent of something familiar can transport us somewhere else entirely. The weight of a well-made cup in your hand can make a morning coffee feel different.
Beauty can bring us closer to our senses.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting beautiful things.
The question is not whether we should care about beauty.
The question is what sits behind it.
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses”
Another of Wilde's lines feels particularly relevant here:
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
It is an extraordinary sentence because it refuses to separate beauty from something deeper.
The senses matter.
What we see, smell, touch, hear and experience matters.
But so does the soul.
For us, this is where the idea of aesthetics that match your ethics becomes particularly interesting.
Perhaps conscious luxury is not about choosing between beauty and responsibility.
Perhaps it is about refusing to accept that we have to.
Why shouldn't something be beautiful and thoughtfully made?
Why shouldn't luxury feel indulgent and be kind to animals?
Why shouldn't beautiful materials coexist with consideration for the planet?
Why shouldn't the things that surround us reflect what we believe?
There is a particular kind of pleasure in knowing that the beautiful thing in front of you does not require you to look away from how it came to exist.
The tragedy behind the exquisite
One of the darker lines in the novel is:
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
In the world of Dorian Gray, this becomes a reflection on beauty, suffering and the hidden stories beneath appearances.
Read today, it also invites another question:
Does something beautiful have to come at a cost?
For a long time, luxury has sometimes been associated with excess.
- Rare materials.
- Exotic skins.
- Animal-derived materials.
- Wasteful packaging.
- Constant novelty.
- Products made quickly and replaced even faster.
The assumption seems to be that the more desirable something is, the more we should be willing to overlook what sits behind it.
But perhaps that is an outdated definition of luxury.
Perhaps the new luxury is knowing that the beautiful thing you have chosen does not have a hidden story you would rather not know.
- Knowing who made it.
- Knowing what it is made from.
- Knowing how it was produced.
- Knowing how long it is intended to last.
- Knowing whether it can be repaired, refilled or reused.
- Knowing that its beauty does not depend upon unnecessary suffering.
The story behind an object is part of the object.
A beautiful exterior is not enough
This may be the most enduring idea in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Dorian remains beautiful while the portrait absorbs the evidence of his choices.
His appearance tells one story.
His reality tells another.
The distance between the two becomes increasingly disturbing.
And while we should not stretch the novel into something Wilde never intended, there is a useful thought here for anyone trying to shop more consciously.
A product can look beautiful.
The packaging can be beautiful.
The photography can be beautiful.
The language can be beautiful.
But beauty alone does not tell us how something was made.
It does not tell us who made it.
It does not tell us what materials were used.
It does not tell us what happened before the product arrived in our hands.
This is why transparency matters.
And why the most beautiful things are often the ones that can withstand being looked at more closely.
“I want to be good”
There is another moment in the novel that feels unexpectedly sincere.
Dorian says:
“I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous.”
The tragedy, of course, is that wanting to be good and actually living accordingly are two very different things.
And perhaps that is where the novel becomes especially relevant to the way we think about consumption.
It is easy to say that we care.
It is harder to make choices that demonstrate it.
We can say we care about animals and then buy something made from animal skin.
We can say we care about the planet and continue buying things designed to be discarded.
We can say we value craftsmanship while choosing the cheapest and fastest option every time.
We can say we want a more ethical world while never asking what sits behind the things we purchase.
Our values become meaningful when they move from intention into action.
Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
But consistently.
The luxury of knowing
Perhaps this is where The Picture of Dorian Gray leaves us.
Not with a rejection of beauty.
Quite the opposite.
With a more complicated understanding of it.
Beauty can be wonderful.
Beauty can move us.
Beauty can make ordinary moments extraordinary.
But perhaps beauty becomes more meaningful when it is accompanied by something deeper.
- Craftsmanship.
- Care.
- Provenance.
- Responsibility.
- Longevity.
- Kindness.
- Integrity.
A beautiful object does not need a tragic story behind it.
And perhaps the real luxury is no longer simply owning something beautiful.
Perhaps it is knowing that the beauty is worth what it cost.
Not just financially.
But environmentally.
Socially.
Ethically.
Emotionally.
And personally.
Because when we know the difference between price and value, we begin to shop differently.
We begin to ask better questions.
We begin to buy fewer things, perhaps, but things we feel more connected to.
Things that tell a story we are happy to be part of.
Things that allow our surroundings to reflect our values rather than contradict them.
Perhaps that is a rather modern answer to a question Oscar Wilde posed more than a century ago.
And perhaps it is one worth asking every time we decide what deserves a place in our lives.
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