Quiet Luxury was a real trend?

[ghostwriter10549]

I just saw this headline at WWD, and I wonder: was quiet luxury really an organic trend that fashion as a whole experienced, or was it just a narrative put out there for people to follow? Because one thing about a real trend is that a publication like WWD just cannot go and say it's over somehow.

 

[tigerrouge]

What is a "real trend"?

These days, a trend is something that gets picked up and done to death on social media, where a look can become so ubiquitous that people tire of it before long.

Then there are microtrends, which aren't real trends, they're just another part of the current obsession for applying a label to every possible aspect of human experience.

Trends, in terms of product lifecycle, are when the spotlight of sudden popularity will cause a product to sell out, at which point, most companies think they can take their customers for a ride, and will restock the products at a steadily higher price, while also sourcing materials/employing work practices of increasingly lower quality, until eventually the consumer catches on that paying thousands for the designer equivalent of fast fashion is not worth the money, because very little of the process resembles a "luxury" experience.

 

[Alquimista]

Maybe it was a label that people fixed on a assortments of other trends that signaled restraint and more conscious consumer pratices.

In fashion in my view there was a real movement towards the minimal, the discrete, etc. For example, prints are totally out of fashion for quite some time. You see one designer here and there trying to revive it but it doesn't stick. Solid colours reign absolute. A lot of play with textures, fabrics too. But this season I noticed more decoration, patterns. Let's see if it sticks.

Edit: Let's not forget the miu miu skirt which is still being imitated from top luxury to shein.

 

[philophile]

'Quiet luxury' has been around since (at least) 2014, at the time when there were still minimalist 'fashion bloggers' and it has been 'in' since then in niche circles. Some of it came in the form of normcore, other in the form of more elevated minimalism, it's just that some idiotic TikToker suddenly decided to rename it two years ago and the whole fashion industry followed (read Vogue, etc), because it was a catchy name that happened to bring sales. Tiktokers are renaming nowadays every single style that previously existed while they were wearing pigtails for school for the sake of going viral. What is upsetting is that people actually fall for the (click)bait. Minimalism has always been about having timeless, high quality clothes over quantity.

I know I'm going to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I believe that due to the economic crisis that has been unleashing since the pandemic and due to an economic system that requires from companies to endlessly grow, fashion conglomerates have decided to increase profits by making fashion 'simpler', definitely NOT to be more 'sustainable', but in order to save on materials, pattern making, etc, that's why it's so convenient now more than ever that 'quiet luxury' becomes a global trend. The latter is why I also believe it won't go away anytime soon.

Quiet luxury can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It can be a good thing if you are not a fashion person and will just stick to timeless high quality basics. It can be a bad thing if you 'invest' in an Agnona sweater, yet you never wear it, but instead still wear your sequined sweater multiple times more. Sticking to whatever you wear the most being it printed, textured, or whatever distinctive non basic or basic resonates with you is the most realistic approach (and most sustainable too), simply because 'capsule wardrobes' and 'basics' are a marketing myth absolutely detached from what people actually really wear daily. Lastly, the worst problem with quiet luxury is that it is a nondescript type of fashion (not arguing that it can also ironically be some sort of status symbol), that turns everyone into a clone, when expressing your individuality through fashion is a form of freedom.