European ‘design’ in the later Fifties and Sixties flourished as never before, the imprimatur of status and quality. A European label—attached to a commodity, an idea or a person—ensured distinction, and thus a price premium. This development was actually quite recent. To be sure, ‘articles de Paris’ had a longstanding place in the luxury goods trade, dating at least to the late eighteenth century; and Swiss watches had been well regarded for many decades. But the notion that cars made in Germany would ipso facto be better crafted than others, or that Italian-designed clothing, Belgian
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