041: On Quiet Luxury
The aesthetic Trojan horse for white supremacy reigned supreme at NYFW
The past two years have seen the rise of breathless chatter in social media scholarship and the observance of customs of white women of certain means. The first instance of this can perhaps be traced to March 2023, when Gwyneth Paltrow was summoned to court. No trial had been followed as closely in the fashion world, nor given as much real estate in glossies, as that of Gwyneth Paltrow’s, as she strode into the courtroom swaddled in Loro Piana and The Row, looking painfully bored and rich, like Siobhan “Shiv” Roy come to life. While its exact origin is a bit murky, one can claim that the unofficial birth of quiet luxury took place in Park City, Utah, with Paltrow’s first lug-soled step into the courtroom that would decide whether the Yoni Egg-shilling mogul would be held responsible for a skiing accident. Paltrow, as we know, was vindicated.
Since then, a corner of the fashion industry whose knowledge system hangs in the balance of a TikTok and a haul has been in thrall with the stylings of a specific pedigree of rich white women, the wives and daughters of the troublingly rich, the cashmere jogger-wearing beholders of quiet luxury. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen became the trend’s north stars. I think it’s worth mentioning here that the positioning of the twin billionaires as design savants by the American fashion industry is a bit tedious. They are first and foremost savvy business people whose merchandised wares were once available at Walmart and Kohl’s, and they are very heavy-handed in their referencing of some of the greatest designers of our time, such as Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, and Martin Margiela, to name a few.
For a time I admired their designs, the muslin funnel-neck tops and silly long sleeves. Now I respect what they do, but my interest has waned as their designs increasingly resemble the limitations of a wealthy white woman’s imagination. This probably makes a good case for at the very least having one foot in the real world, lest ideas become stale and commonplace.
The Olsens, however, are not responsible for the incuriosity that plagues quiet luxury. Some point to the COVID-era recession as the starting point of the trend’s ascent, though you wouldn’t think so judging by the amount of money influencers, Gen Z and millennial fashion editors, and those who seek their counsel spend on achieving this aesthetic, tagging and name-dropping their umpteenth oversized coat. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the guiding principle of quiet luxury is to be quiet about the whole affair, is it not?
Another reason for quiet luxury’s ascent, some argue, is onset of fatigue with conspicuous consumption. One salient point that is often left out of arguments and frustrations against quiet luxury is what this says about the fashion industry’s relationship with race and class. Bear with me here, but I have a suspicion that the quiet luxury trend, unbeknownst or not, is an aesthetic reestablishing of white supremacy in the fashion industry. The first marker of this is the absence of vibrant colour and empowered prints, with the interesting exception of a particular shade of red. The colour palette of the luxuriously quiet is limited to varying shades of neutrals, not unlike the staid exteriors of New York City’s buildings.
Colour and its absence is a deeply racialized concern. Even in Bangladesh, where I grew up and lived for eleven years, colour was a class and caste signifier. Wealthy members of society often wore subdued or mishti (sweet) colours, based on the preferred fashions of the wealthy in Western countries; the rather cruel term khaat or gauche was reserved for those who wore bright colours and fun prints, though the very existence of colour is foundational to Bangladeshi culture. Colour became the delineator between old money and new, between rich and poor.
Appearing to come from old money is a guiding principle of quiet luxury, spawning great debates about whether it is indeed more lucrative to buy one’s Hermes Kelly second-hand, bearing the patina of age and wear that whispers, “This old thing? Why, I inherited it from my mother of course!” Who are the majority beholders of “old” money in America? Why, white people, of course, predominantly by means of exploitation and subjugation of people of colour, the poor, and the working class. The glorification of old money and the aesthetics of quiet luxury trivializes this country’s problematic past and present, and attempts to cast whiteness as superior.
Whiteness is a powerful substance, for centuries positioning itself as a signifier of privilege, superiority, and material wealth. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why some might want to imitate the customs of dress of the white well-to-do, regardless of how that wealth was accumulated or what their politics are, as it offers access and influence by signaling social, fiscal, and political conservatism, or worse yet, apathy. And at New York Fashion Week, a bevy of brands played the imitation game.
It’s unsurprising, given the popularity of quiet luxury, that the powers that be at Calvin Klein would attempt to capitalize on the trend. Calvin Klein is quiet luxury catnip: prior to her marriage, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy – a woman who agonized over unwelcome publicity, whose rare public appearances have been painstakingly catalogued across the social media accounts of quiet luxury anthropologists – built a career at Calvin Klein prior to her marriage to John F. Kennedy Jr.. Veronica Leoni’s debut collection for Calvin Klein was an uninspired interpretation of a viral trend, incurious clothing for the pathologically incurious.
Calvin Klein set the tone for the dreary homages to quiet luxury, on show in droves from day one of New York Fashion Week. The week was rife with lackluster greys, monochromatic looks, black and not in a New York or Antwerpian way, and conciliatory red ensembles. There were a comical number of coats with capelet-shawl attachments and the requisite use of shades of brown.
You could say, in a sense, that the clothes do reflect the times. A new American government, elected by the American people, is intent on returning to the days of good old fashioned white supremacy, eliminating government-funded projects and programs that have been valuable to the people of colour, the poor, and the working class. Corporations, empowered, have gleefully done away with any progress towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. The end game, I imagine, is a hegemonic class of obscenely wealthy white men and their apathetic wives, and their sycophants.
The works of too many designers replicating the aesthetics of quiet luxury at New York Fashion Week looked like an audition for who would dress the most clueless woman on the Upper East Side. Fashion is a tricky blend of art and commerce, and this season the artist has left the building and (old) money talked loudest, quietly, a demonstration of an anaphylactic aversion to colour and a different way of being. Thank goodness for brands such as Christopher John Rogers, Diotima, Eckhaus Latta, and Collina Strada. They remained steadfast in their vision and their allegiance to their clients and fans, who in turn revere them for their expansive concepts and progressive values. They were the beating, sentient heart of the week.
It never fails to escape me that CBK wore actual Yohji and Comme. I do not think she would be terribly interested in Khaite or The Row.
Awesome work !