The shift to a more restrained aesthetic may also be necessary to keep up with shifting values in China: Beyond the organic shift in trends and taste, social networks have purged some content “showing off wealth and worshipping money” since 2024, in line with the CCP’s “common prosperity” push.

Rather than conforming to the diktats of low-key luxury, Anderson seemed to be acknowledging that that space is already saturated; its potency for signalling status undergoing rapid dilution. His show’s narrative—about punks cosplaying as aristocrats while the aristocrats cosplay as punks—tapped into the ambient confusion about what “good taste,”... See more