If you followed any style conversations in 2023, you know it has all been about quiet luxury and old money. So I am months if not years late with this post and you may be sick and tired of reading about it, but this topic still triggers me. And it’s my blog, so here we go.

To begin with, there is significant confusion around what quiet luxury is and its relationship with other similar aesthetics. Not that I have any definitive answer to it either, but I believe the consensus tends to form around natural fabrics (silk, cashmere, other fine wools), simple but very well constructed cuts, neutral colours, no logos and high price. For me, it is giving Gwyneth Paltrow in the courtroom and Mary-Kate Olsen with her beaten-up Birkin. It is about more classic pieces from brands like The Row, Phoebe Philo, Khaite and Tove (these brands also do very high-concept stuff, which to my mind is too statement to be quiet luxury). Quiet luxury is a Khaite cashmere cardigan with your favourite jeans, The Row coat thrown over your shoulders, old Celine handbag in the crook of your arm and a general air of nonchalance and understatement.

Two brands that are often invoked – Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli – seem more stealth wealth than quiet luxury to me, although it is an open question whether one can speak about any stealth or quietness after the insane exposure of all these brands in recent times. To my mind, quiet luxury has more of a fashion edge which stealth wealth lacks: for all the influence it’s had, Succession is not a fashion-forward show and these two brands are about (subtly) signalling status and wealth, not making a style statement. Think that Loro Piana baseball cap, a cashmere t-shirt from Bottega and those ubiquitous Brunello Cucinelli loafers. If you prefer, you may of course lump these two categories together and for the purposes of this rant, it doesn’t really matter.

While you are at it, you can add old money, the preppier and/or more glamorous sibling of quiet luxury and stealth wealth. Old money also scorns labels and trends, but it wants you to know that it is playing tennis or riding or sailing – think tweed blazers and riding boots; polo shirts, sundresses and white shorts; Ralph Lauren and classic Chanel. My favourite sub-genre of old money is ‘shabby English lord’ – in particular when this style is adopted by women – which requires that the tweed blazer has some moth-holes and the wellies can only come in khaki.

There are a number of positive things about all of this – the focus on quality, cut and longevity in particular. Most of us could use more of that and I personally enjoy many elements of these aesthetics, although I draw a line at that baseball cap (the vicuna version costs 1700 euros). But the three also have something less admirable in common and that’s the obsession with looking wealthy: it is essentially cosplaying as rich people.

Now, I am not against adopting aesthetics that do not fully align with one’s lifestyle; I am not even against trying to look better off than one actually is. I am partial to the dark academia vibe myself and if girls want to look like ballerinas without putting in the daily practice and ruining their feet, I see no reason why they shouldn’t. Fashion is supposed to be, among other things, a fantasy. I also remember well how important it was in my 20s, on a microscopic budget, to ‘pass’ for someone with more means, someone worldly and professional. If you need to dress up to get that job, to not be discriminated against, to fit in – I get it. I still do it, sometimes.

My fundamental problem with quiet luxury and its siblings – and I do not exclude my own behaviour here – is that out of all the aesthetics, it is the emptiest. At its core, it is not about looking stylish, interesting, intelligent or even pretty (or like a ballerina or a history student at Cambridge), but just about looking rich, which frankly seems an increasingly questionable aspiration in today’s world. It’s about quietly signalling the wealth that one does in fact not have. It is a look imbued with privilege and snobbery, while also being hypocritical about it – doing all that signalling while pretending not to do so, while also knowing that anyone interested in fashion will recognise a Margaux bag. At least wearing your logos proudly is very ‘what you see is what you get’; NOT wearing any logos or turning one’s nose up at ‘loud luxury’ brands doesn’t make anyone morally superior. It is simply classism in sartorial form.

It may also be the only aesthetic where pursuing the look is so clearly in opposition with actually having the related lifestyle. Considering the absolutely insane prices of most quiet luxury brands, dressing in line with this aesthetic* means that for any normal person, actually saving and investing money to become wealthier becomes an impossible task. If you buy that Khaite fair isle sweater and cashmere pants that are perfect for Chamonix after-ski, you no longer have any money left over to go skiing.

There are other issues. I mentioned classism, but quiet luxury is also white AF – and it is not difficult to make a case for it being racist and colonialist. I know most people who buy into these trends simply want a nice coat they can wear several seasons without needing to get a new one, but it doesn’t hurt to think a little about the history that underpins these style codes. All these English lords and Lauren-wearing tennis aficionados, the generational wealth… Is this really whom and what we want to emulate? Especially if you happen to be a middle-aged white person like I am; it reads a bit different on a rebellious black youth.

And finally, thinness. Fashion is of course a thin people’s game anyway, has always been and still is, despite surface-level improvements. But quiet luxury is more wedded to thinness than most trends, partly because it’s so simple: to make that more appealing on page/screen where you cannot see or feel the quality, fashion relies on thinness (the same way ‘the model’s uniform of t-shirt and jeans’ does not necessarily look the same and as purchase-inducing on normal bodies). Because we are all conditioned to see thinness as attractive by default and it is not a coincidence that Gwyneth is quiet luxury’s patron saint. So scrolling the Instagram these days, I sometimes pause to think: is this great style or is she just thin?

This rant is not meant as an attack on anyone who likes their good-quality knits and well-cut trousers and perhaps dreams of an Hermes bag**. As I said, I love many of these things and will continue to wear them. What I am taking issue with is the way these things are framed and communicated in the fashion space and the hypocrisy it encourages; the lack of examination of what it means to invite everyone to dress like fictional media moguls***. Fashion is, of course, often aspirational and loves an ‘if you know you know’ moment, but the quiet luxury discourse really epitomises it for me. It is a different level of insidiousness than “wear red!” or even “buy a Miu Miu bag!”.

So in the spirit of this rant and to shake off all that problematic baggage, I am calling my look here ‘new minimalism’, rather than quiet luxury (it wouldn’t qualify for QL anyway, as my Sambas are too trendy and way too recognisable and my jeans are from Zara). The new minimalism, to my mind, is less stark than the 90s variety, less black-and-white and more neutral, softer in shape and more casual in vibe. In relation to the things already mentioned, I am wearing a La Collection coat, Victoria Beckham bag and Uniqlo sweater.

*You can of course do this on budget, with brands like COS and Uniqlo and shopping vintage. But in this paragraph, I am assuming a total dedication to the cause.

**Or is thin or white.

***There are of course those who have examined it, but it’s not enough for me.

Images by Krõõt Tarkmeel, MUA Gerda Miller.