Adornment is the egoistic element as such: it singles out its wearer, whose self-feeling it embodies and increases at the cost of others (for, the same adornment of all would no longer adorn the individual). But, at the same time, adornment is altruistic: its pleasure is designed for the others, since its owner can enjoy it only insofar as he mirrors himself in them; he renders the adornment valuable only through the reflection of this gift of his.

DEFINE: Simmel frames adornment as a paradoxically dual phenomenon — egoistic in singling out the individual, altruistic in requiring the gaze of others to complete its value.

Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simm…, loc. 8224