Thanks to a friend for drawing my attention to a French expression, "péter dans la soie," literally "to fart into silk." Le Trésor de la langue française informatisé, s.v. péter, defines it as "porter des vêtements luxueux, vivre dans le luxe," i.e. "to wear luxurious clothes, to live in luxury," and the earliest citation is Lucien Rigaud, Dictionnaire du jargon parisien: l'argot ancien et l'argot moderne (Paris: Paul Ollendorff, 1878), p. 257.
This colorful expression reminded my friend, as it reminds me, of a certain candidate now running for the office of President of the United States, despite that candidate's claims of youthful poverty.
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