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Story MINH NHAT
Photos FASHION BRANDS
Simple, timeless and well-made items have quietly stolen the spotlight in contemporary luxury fashion.
From the minimalist spirit
The end of 2022 marked the moment when global fashion returned to minimalism. After the maximalist trend completed its mission of filling the dreariness of the pandemic with colors, the world was ready to leave the gloom behind and move on. From here, quiet luxury – a trend stemming from the minimalist style – gradually emerged and affirmed its position. Quiet luxury can be simply understood as the value of “whispering” to customers through quality instead of “shouting” with well-known logos or complicated patterns.
As with other trends, fashion and television served as a bridge that helped turn quiet luxury into a mainstream phenomenon. The acclaimed series Succession, based around an ultra-rich media tycoon and his family, was perhaps the ultimate depiction of the fashion movement that is also known as “stealth wealth”.
Highlights from the Succession wardrobe department include a Merino wool bomber jacket with cashmere and suede from Tom Ford, retailing for nearly USD 7,000, a blank cashmere baseball cap in a neutral color from Loro Piana and a brown t-shirt with a very basic design from Maison Margiela. In the closets of characters such as Kendall Roy, everything comes from the world’s leading luxury brands but their labels and logos are nowhere to be seen.
The characters of Succession are not ostentatious. Their way of “showing off” lies in prioritizing the use of high-class products and services, and fashion is just one of them. Writer Leandra Medine has described the style as discreet but “so fancy, it’s fussy.” She wrote that the style also encapsulates “clothes that are practical and sensible, but somehow still signal something class-related, like a Barbour coat.”
Into the big brands
This season, quiet luxury has planted its flag in major fashion houses – even Gucci, one of the successful symbols of maximalism. After the departure of Creative Director Alessandro Michele, Gucci simplified the entire spirit of the brand on its Fall/Winter 2023 runway by removing as much jewelry as possible, toning down its popping colors and pushing for practicality. While not a purely minimalist collection, it was clearly an effort by Gucci to exercise restraint while still maintaining the glitzy image adored by fashionistas from 2016 to 2022.
At the same time, Bottega Veneta offers a compelling answer to a challenging question: “What will brands known for their minimalist aesthetic, when that style becomes a trend?” Before the world started talking about quiet luxury, Bottega Veneta and Daniel Lee had already perfected this trend with an “invisible logo” named “Bottega Green,” the signature leaf green color associated with the brand. After Daniel Lee’s departure, Bottega Green started to fade away and its new creative director Matthieu Blazy introduced minimalist concepts focusing on quality. Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps praised the pieces in Bottega Veneta’s Fall/Winter 2022 collection this way: “Their simplicity and honesty, not to mention their luxury, make them value propositions: identifiable with no expiration date.”
To follow the trend or ignore it?
Apart from major fashion houses, quiet luxury is making a splash in fast fashion brands. If non-wealthy customers want to look on-trend, fast fashion can instantly cater to that need – we would only know that the understated black jacket is a luxury item if we closely inspect the details and see the brand name embroidered on the innermost layer of fabric.
More than perhaps any other trend, quiet luxury easily makes its way into everyone’s
wardrobe through fast fashion. As Sophie Lou Wilson wrote in The Face magazine, widespread adoption can turn quiet luxury into “simply another form of conspicuous consumption.”
“It is rooted in the idea that owning the right pieces and looking a certain way will improve your status in the world,” she wrote.
However, quiet luxury can still establish its own order if it succeeds in breaking away from the trend label. Instead of becoming a fleeting aesthetic taste, quiet luxury can be understood as a tool to promote sustainability and quality production, also fostering the habit of building a capsule wardrobe. Even if the purchased items are not ultra-luxury, quality basic items from affordable brands are more desirable than an excessive and wasteful wardrobe. In its ideal form, quiet luxury is not just about changing wardrobes but mindsets as well.
