Fashion is always cyclical, and after the maximalism of revenge dressing, dopamine dressing, and Barbiecore, 2023 has felt like a shift back to minimalism. If you want to get deep, part of it can be seen as a reaction to economic trends (high inflation, high interest rates, general panic about signs of a recession, etc.), when people get more conservative about how they dress and tend toward the classics versus pieces that shout luxury. But on a more surface level, I think people just get tired of their clothes and want to try something new. The thing about quiet luxury is that it's positioned as an uber-rich thing, like how the characters on Succession dress. Anecdotally, there is some truth in that; I have known some incredibly wealthy people who exclusively wear threadbare clothes from L.L. Bean and wouldn't be caught dead in a designer logo. I have also known heiresses (I'm talking literal future billionaires) who'd never say no to a rhinestone, bright color, or bandage dress. It's true that money can't buy taste, but taste is also subjective. Quiet luxury is still wealth-signaling; it just depends on what your flavor of wealth-signaling is. That said, my style has always leaned more toward minimalism than maximalism, so if this quiet luxury trend means I have more viable clothing options out there, I'm all for it. Here's what quiet luxury looks like to me.
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