Does the ‘Quiet Luxury’ Trend Have Staying Power?

A February review of a fashion show in Milan from the Wall Street Journal proclaimed “Everyone’s Over ‘Quiet Luxury,’” a fashion trend embracing understated elegance and quality over conspicuous displays of wealth and flashy logos.

“‘Quiet luxury’ has become a bit of a dirty phrase in Milan,” wrote Rory Satran, the business publication’s executive fashion director. “To some at the Italian brands that embody the term, it’s reductive — an overly TikTok-ified way of describing classic, refined clothing. Many fashion industry people roll their eyes when it comes up.”

However, a new survey from e-commerce logistics provider Radial points to ongoing appeal. Radial wrote in the study, “While quiet luxury has long been a fashion principle of the affluent, quiet luxury now appeals to a broader market as consumers seek to get the most value and longevity out of their apparel purchases and realize their sustainability values.”

The quiet luxury term, also known as “stealth wealth,” began being cited in 2023, with some tracing it to the refined outfits worn by Goop founder and actress Gwyneth Paltrow to her ski accident trial last March as well as the old money looks showcased during HBO’s final season of “Succession.”

Some see the trend as a resurgence of the shift away from conspicuous consumption, including logo-heavy and overt looks, seen in the post-2008 recession. Denim Dudes founder Amy Leverton told Sourcing Journal, “We believe it’s a mirror of the 2008 market crash, a moment when financial uncertainty led consumers to buy more intentionally, buy less and gravitate towards quieter, higher quality garments.”

Beyond more people living paycheck to paycheck, a new generation of consumers valuing sustainability and ethical sourcing is expected to drive purchases of longer-lasting products.

Thomaï Serdari, marketing professor and director of the fashion and luxury program at New York University’s Stern School of Business, sees quiet luxury as the antithesis of fast fashion. Serdari told CNBC, “That is the new mindset that has allowed quiet luxury to stick around a little longer.”

Other factors driving the trend cited by Kantar include increasing protests of inequality that’s “further stigmatizing displays of wealth” and online influencers’ role in “democratizing access and visibility” to perceived luxury items.

The trend is also increasingly influencing interior design and vacation choices.

Nonetheless, a few fashion insiders feel trends always change, with many predicting the comeback of blingy, loud fashion.

Valentino in April hired Gucci’s former creative head Alessandro Michele, known for his use of sparkle and bold prints, in anticipation of a trend shift to edgier designs. Rachid Mohamed Rachid, chairman of Valentino, told Bloomberg TV, “We know that in the last few years, there has been quiet luxury prevailing. My guess, like many others in fashion: this is going to be over.”

“There’s a change underway in fashion,” wrote the New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman in late February. “The safe, swaddling allure of quiet luxury, the sort of luxury that was as much of a local specialty as risotto alla Milanese, seems less and less consequential — a sort of relaxed, neutral approach to self-expression that no longer jibes with the increasing urgency of the world. That seems less like a panacea than a surrender.”