Saying more with fewer features is an art in language. However, it’s not restricted only to the way we speak or write. Being able to communicate your status through your clothes without wearing shiny, ostentatious items is also a form of art. So, in this article, you’ll learn what quiet luxury is and how it lets people send certain messages without saying a word.
What Does Quiet Luxury Mean?
Quiet luxury refers to a sociological and economic trend of unobtrusive and discrete display and consumption of luxurious goods. Those items may range from clothes to jewelry and accessories.
The quiet luxury meaning goes back as far as the turn of the 19th century. At that period, the political and economic influence of the traditional institutions, such as royal families and churches, moved to wealthy capitalists. This new line of elitists embraced unobtrusive fashion, design, and architecture to secede from the pretentious and flamboyant styles of the courts and churches of the past. This new aristocracy chose to dress neatly, yet inconspicuously.
The quiet luxury style has been coming and going for decades now. In the 1990s, some fashion designers advocated simple and inconspicuous clothes and accessories, in contrast with the ostentatious, logo-dominated luxury fashion of the 1980s. The political zeitgeist of the ‘80s was reflected in such opulent styles, where showing off was a desirable way of clothing. Nevertheless, quite luxury has never been a preference of ‘old money’. In other words, ‘new money’, i.e., people who got rich quickly or within one generation, are more likely to display their wealth through their explicitly branded clothes, accessories, cars, and other status symbols.
The Secrets of Quiet Luxury Fashion
The point of the quiet luxury fashion isn’t to purchase and wear inexpensive clothes; it goes above that. People who may ask themselves “what is quiet luxury” need to know that the quiet luxury fashion is here to let the elite retain their sense of exclusiveness. One of the trends that has led to the rise of quiet luxury is the fact that more people can afford typical expensive clothes. Many fashion brands have intentionally broadened their target audience and built a wider customer base, democratizing the accessibility of their products.
In other words, if a pair of Air Max sneakers costs around $200, they’re not a status symbol anymore. That’s why some wealthy buyers now want to buy sneakers that contain no logos, no complicated designs, and no mass-production features. They’re ready to pay the price of several Air Max or Sam Smith sneakers, just to get the sense of uniqueness. So, a rich person who can afford the aforementioned or any other branded and logoed sneakers might not have even heard of some quiet luxury brands that their affluent counterpart is eager to buy.
Quiet Luxury Revival
In fashion and linguistics, you can’t control what will go off at what time. When a social or political trend is reborn, some former slang words go viral. When a TikTok post hits millions of views, the term demure becomes a global phenomenon. The fact that even Demi Moore recorded herself pronouncing it is even more entertaining (at least for those who like puns, and the homophony in demure and Demi Moore).
The same goes for quiet luxury. In 2023, after the three long years of combat with the coronavirus pandemic, people started to be more cautious about their expenses and existence. That year, the recession also threatened the fashion budgets of fellow Americans, plus some pop-culture influences played a significant role in the revival of quiet luxury. Season 4 of the Succession TV show premiered on HBO in March 2023. As the members of the old-money Roy family were clear representatives of the quiet luxury fashion – check out Shivon Roy, for instance – and that series was a huge success, quiet luxury got a stronger boost in popular culture. The premise that old-money elitists are more likely to wear low-key, yet exclusive clothes, has seen another confirmation in this example.
What Do Quiet Luxury Brands Do Differently?
Quiet luxury offers a simple design, yet unique materials and manufacturing. At first glance, a simple polo shirt without a visible logo or any other sign of identification might look cheap. But when the label inside says, for instance, Brioni, Loro Piana, or Stefano Ricci, those who know what they’re looking for will know why that particular polo shirt may cost a few thousand dollars.
So, quiet luxury brands don’t mass-produce their exclusive lines. They also differentiate themselves from other brands with their premium prices. On the other hand, the same brand may have both quiet-luxury items and more mainstream products, but at different names and different prices.
Quiet Luxury Fashion’s New Lines
The trend of wearing quiet luxury items comes and goes, as explained above. Based on 2024 and 2025, quiet luxury has not been the mainstream in the fashion industry in these two years. But the old-money elite will stick to it in the time ahead, just like they’ve done many times before. As for the rest of the crew, it’s always wise to check out why quiet luxury often speaks more than a thousand words and logos.
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