The early sales, typically from conspicuous consumption, play a role in capturing high margins and establishing the brand.
Paris' luxury "triangle d'or" — the Avenues Montaigne and Georges V and Rue Francois Premier — shed its image of hushed, tasteful shopping for one of bubbly-and-macaroon-fueled conspicuous consumption played out beneath a booming house and techno soundtrack.
This conspicuous scene, playing out many times a day at the London Games, has also become an international advertising bonanza for a product not usually associated with water sports: headphones.
The third Patsy Ramsey is a conspicuous fake, played by the soap opera actress Judi Evans Luciano in the tacky one-hour Fox drama "Getting Away With Murder: The JonBenet Ramsey Story," tossed on the air last week to beat the mini-series.
His well-known unibrow — a furry caterpillar lounging above his eyes, a valley nestled between two grassy hills — was more conspicuous than his play.
(SUNY's most conspicuous attempt to play in that league — Binghamton's one trip to the N.C.A.A. Division I basketball tournament in 2009 — ended in scandal, with arrests of several players, accusations of preferential treatment for athletes and the implosion of the program).
Combined, this is the first scientific evidence of a cross-ecosystem interaction between Pacific herring and American black bears, two relatively conspicuous species that play substantive roles in coastal ecosystems but which have not been previously linked.
Gwyneth Paltrow, working a deep-fried accent and a strategically conspicuous cross necklace, plays Kelly Canter, a high-profile train wreck who, in the wake of a disastrous tour and an alcohol-induced miscarriage, heads back on the road in hopes of setting her life and career straight.
The son of a distinguished man of letters, Edward Garnett, and his Tolstoy-translating wife Constance, Bunny enjoyed a wildly unconventional upbringing, in which home schooling, trips to Russia and a menage a trois in which his mother happily accepted the presence of the other woman all played conspicuous parts.
Shamans were frequently self-serving and played conspicuous political games.
