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This article examines patterns of sartorial consumptions amongst Martinique’s colonial elite in the XVIIIth century, and analyses the ways in which European’s observers and the transposition of the debate on luxury in the West Indian context have informed a certain view of colonial fashion as conspicuous. The study of the financial and commercial ties between planters and metropolitan merchants allows us to better understand how the mercantilist system and its economic and social characteristics also shaped discourses on colonial fashion.