How the other half live...

A hundred years after The Great Gatsby’ was published, data shows that only one in 10 of those earning over 100k thinks they are rich. Zoé Beaty explores the way we perceive wealth

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Champagne towers, cocktails and caviar: a century ago, F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby immortalised the hedonism of the 1920s Jazz Age elite in their shiny, vacant world, where wealth was both dazzling and doomed. Gatsby was leading the way to the American dream – prosperity and success – in his ultimately tragic pursuit of the unattainable, and his lavish parties epitomised what it meant to be rich.

Back then, it meant Rolls-Royces lined up in the yard, and “crates of oranges and lemons”. But 100 years since the seminal novel was published, our perception of wealth has evolved.

Some things haven’t changed at all – namely, we’re no less captivated by money. From Succession to The White Lotus, Triangle of Sadness to Expats, wealth porn still sells just as fiercely as Fitzgerald’s classic depiction of the high life. We love to ogle the vulgarity, condemn the materialism, and analyse the fragile egos of those who seem to have so much and yet so little – but still imagine how we might one day find ourselves up there, too.

What’s sometimes unclear is what exactly “up there” looks like, and how to tell when you reach it. While owning a media empire or staying at a five-star luxury resort in Thailand might be an obvious giveaway, the parameters we use to define wealth and status are ever evolving, sometimes in peculiar ways.

Now, nine out of 10 people who earn more than £100,000 per year don’t consider themselves wealthy.