Quiet Luxury: a Philosophy on Life
The quiet luxury “trend” - a fascination with linen, cashmere, tailored, loose fit & minimalist clothing in unassuming shades - brought on by the success of the HBO show, Succession, has taken over social media feeds and retail-scapes across the globe. The irony of this trend is that “quiet luxury” is precisely that - quiet, discreet, thoughtful - the exact opposite of anything akin to trendy.
So what exactly is “quiet luxury” anyway?
The term “quiet luxury” grew out of a general fascination with the fashions & tastes of the old money-ed, powerful, shadowy percentage of society. The type of people who attend Ivy league schools, get their first “jobs” solely through parental arrangement, and have had standing memberships at social clubs since they were infants. Why the fasination? Why now, when we are prosecuting & condemning the privileged in our governments, and are generally pursuing more nationalist “everyman” politics?
I, perhaps too hopefully for my own good, think its due to a general desire for a less wasteful, more legacy-minded perspective on life - the kind of perspective you find in families who have managed to hold onto their wealth for generations, and grow rather than implode.
Historically, this has always been the life view of the privileged few. Kings, and lords (and their modern descendants) had the luxury of power; their legacy, family, and the state of their affairs was how they solidified power. The average man was too busy scrapping together an existence out of nothing, to worry about silly things like “legacy” - despite the fact that I firmly believe every man leaves his mark on the world around him, for good or for harm. However, the 20th century brought about the unprecedented rise of the upper-middle class in society, which has fundamentally shaken up the power dynamics in modern society compared to the past social dynamics. The 20th century rise of global capitalism created a giant portion of society as the newly-minted wealthy middle class - the significantly comfortable, cash-flushed grandsons of farmers and laborers, now hugely contributing to the global economy by working hard & spending freely. But there was a catch to this - these new wealthy were working so hard in the industries of the future, they had no time to spare thinking about how they were spending all this money they were earning. You see the rise of fast food, fast fashion, and the race of the “budget” stores - all vying for the dollar of the exhausted, time-starved middle class consumer at the same time as they are making their mark on history.
There is a 2-fold issue here - on one hand, you have a whole class of people who didn’t grow up with money, now being paid huge amounts, and having no hereditary training on how to use it. A sense of legacy is taught, handed down through the generations of lessons learned and investments made. The new wealth of the 20th century had no such education, and still operated on what they had been taught by their blue-collar parents - that you (more or less - we don’t have a debt crisis for nothing) spend within your means, and you don’t assume your actions have much impact on the wider human community. It still baffles me that the average American genuinely believes that their garbage today, does not impact someone else’s ability to drink clean water tomorrow. Naturalists and climate activists have long been frustrated by the inability to convince the global community of the natural, social, and economic consequences of their modern rate of consumerism, but I believe it really all comes down to this fundamental social shift. The descendants of those who had little to no power, now have the most powerful & impactful tool of the modern era - money.
On the other hand, you have as part of this capitalistic rise, the heyday of the soft goods industries, ready to capitalize (pun intended) on the money of the middle class. The 20th century middle class did spend at dizzying rates - fueling the rise of fast production, cheap manufacturing, 3rd world labor, a general disregard for longterm consequences, cultural decline and the destruction of natural assets around the globe. Maybe there is a 3rd point of this social shift that I am missing - we also became a truly global world in the 20th century. Our great grandparents didn’t have items in their homes that directly impacted people living on the other side of the globe, but we do. The jar of peanut butter in your pantry (if you aren’t buying a sustainably or locally made version) is a direct result of palm deforestation & species decline in Asia. I can understand why people balk at this idea, its so staggeringly improbable by yesterday’s standards when we weren’t a global society, but now we are and consequences this huge are a very real reality. I’m not going to pretend that this global community is a bad thing, we are the richer for it, but the ignorance of the responsibilities of being a global world, is.
Legacy is defined as “something having long-lasting impact”. One of the positives I believe to have come out of this 20th century shake up is that we have finally been forced to face the terrifying consequences of what has been true since the dawn of time - that each and every single one of us has an impact, leaves a footprint in the sand of time, leaves a legacy to the next generation - the difference is that only now are we waking up to that truth. Forget class division & hierarchy, the best thing that could come out of the this new century is a realization on a global scale, that YOU have the power to leave an impact on this world, and that this isn’t a goal, you already have this power - so what are you going to do with it? So when I see society obsessed with dressing like “old money”, all I see is a generation waking up to the realization that with power comes responsibility - we’ve lived through the waste & destruction alongside growth & innovation, now the future needs to find a balance again. We want to wear quality clothing, own furniture that lasts, enjoy the arts and know that our children will enjoy the same natural wonders that we enjoyed. If that positive movement first manifests through a social love affair with linen blazers and old cars, then so be it. All I can say is that it makes me hopeful for a more impactful and thoughtful future.
