How luxury lost its soft power

Luxury is no longer about simply reviving heritage codes of the past, but rather it’s a dream space. Status is therefore found in radical solutions and ground-breaking projects.

To participate in luxury culture, a person does not even need to participate in the luxury market. They can own, share and trade in luxury images. As the scenarios outlined below show, luxury’s migrating towards ever more imaginary - literally and figuratively - from bizarrely imaginative designs that are bound to do well on TikTok to images t... See more

When brands moved from manufacturing products to manufacturing culture, design, luxury and art, curation zoomed onto taste, aesthetics, identity and social status.

Pre-owned model, including rentals and resales, establishes luxury as rarity, uniqueness and power of objects granted to them by everyone who touched them, owned them, and wore them.

The rich belong to the old industrial economy and to the traditional luxury. They own objects that signify stability, security, and durability (real estate, hard luxury, antiques, high-end wine, collectible art). The core promise of hard luxury is its permanence (“You never really own Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation

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Sartorial weirdness is luxury as affirmation of power - the power of luxury as an aesthetic system and also the power of individual designers within the industry.