Expensive, popular, and classy: the impossible intersection for luxury.
Imagine a Venn diagram with three circles representing three sets: There is one that is expensive, luxuriously so, whereby the incremental gain in whatever quality is vastly outpaced by the incremental cost. There is popularity, how commonplace the product is, or at least knowledge of the product is. There is classiness, how respected the brand is by those who consider themselves in the know. It’s easy to have an intersection of either of the two circles: Expensive and popular would be a Gucci tracksuit, Philipp Plein, or Alek Monopoly. Popular and classy would be Jordan 1s in the original colourway, iPhones, and family vacations within your income range. Classy and expensive is filled with things that I don’t know about and would be better off not knowing about, like Zuck’s clothes, designer jewellery, and some tasteful yachts, I imagine.
The conflict here is the luxury paradox. Something starts off as expensive and classy, generating demand and interest because it is aspirational. As more and more people start acquiring this product, style, or brand, it looses its sheen because too many people have it or want it, which turns it expensive and popular. To simultaneously have all three traits is near-impossible, particularly for things that are purely cosmetic. Of course, there’s no accounting for taste, but generally accepted examples of things that straddle all three circles are functional: High-end German automobiles. Rimowa carry-on suitcases. Apple devices. Despite the marginal quality being greatly exceeded by marginal cost, there is a perception of top-of-the-line quality associated with this premium. People who pay for these items are not perceived as tacky and wasteful, or at least not as badly as their peers in Cartier and Hermes.
What else falls within the coveted intersection? Champagne does. Even those who have never had champagne know of it. It is the Band-Aid of adhesive bandages, the Kleenex of tissues. Two things elevate it to this level. The first is true scarcity. Champagne, as the meme goes, is only really champagne if it comes from the champagne region of France. Otherwise, it is merely sparkling wine. It is understandable why there is so little of it if it must come from a specific terroir: Rolex can always open another atelier, but there is only one champagne. The other is that its fame is nearly impossible to separate from Western culture. Celebration calls for champagne. Even in Spain they use champagne, not cava to christen boats. Ferrari drivers spray each other with champagne, not prosecco after a Grand Prix. It is often substituted, but never replaceable. It maintains its status as expensive, popular, and classy due to its place in the Western consciousness and its scarcity.
Strangely, something else I find that falls into that intersection is luxury totes, used as though they were totes. Longchamp, LV, even Goyard: they’re just overpriced canvas bags with logos splashed across them. They’re expensive and overworn, yet somehow not that tacky. I’m sure that those totes are the single biggest revenue generator for each of those respective companies. This one is a bit harder to rationalize, but I think it’s because they are accessible for the aspirational market, and discardable enough for the wealthy that they can be tossed around and disregarded. Despite the chavs buying them, the rich still buy them too. In other words, there aren’t other thousand-dollar totes out there; it’s not as though the quiet luxury segment for totes is booming. Or perhaps it is and I’m just too far removed from that target demographic to even consider it as a possibility.
Fads also frequently fall into this intersection. Though it’s certainly not what brands or products aspire to be, they cross class lines, seen on the tastemaker and the tasteless alike. For the short duration that something like a Stanley bottle, Salomon shoes, or whatever other summer trend is popular, everyone falls prey. The appeal lies in that the foreshortened adoption cycle makes it a level playing field for everyone. Those who read Vogue or Hypebeast might be a bit quicker on the drop, but have no true advantage over those who saw a reel and decided to impulse-buy without thoughtful consideration. The wave of chunky and colourful sneakers has been around for half a decade, but for the market to fixate on Salomons is much more unpredictable. Suddenly, the niche sneaker brand that the sneakerhead has been supporting becomes not the quiet fashion trend, but rather a knockoff for someone who couldn’t get a pair of XT variants in time. Inventory and supply chains are often unable to keep up with burgeoning demand for product which not only inflates prices in a resale market, but also creates real scarcity once more. Despite the overwhelming popularity of a fad, participation is still to be in the know. Until it isn’t, when the influencers decide to abandon the product, held now only by the late adopters and enterprising resellers.
It would be nice if I had a true thesis to group all these products together, a playbook on how to create the next enduring luxury product. Still, there are a couple traits to summarize. True scarcity is important, the closer to perceived physical limitation the better. There are really only so many minks to be killed for a mink coat, but Supreme refusing to print more t-shirts or stickers makes it cheap. Turning something into a fixture, a household name, is also a way to ensure popularity: if the brand is associated with the product, or if the product with the larger family of brands, then it’s also unlikely that it’ll be deemed trashy. It’s also important to be reminded that the original scope excluded anything that was functional; instead of playing these games, it’s possible to simply make a better product, or the best product.
Perhaps it’s also worth redefining what will become trashy when it is not quite popular, when it is only expensive. It’d be terrible to spend exorbitant amounts of money on design that becomes trendy a month later, and one has to go around telling people they bought it before it became popular. To start off, avoid overpriced items that aren’t “useful”. It is also generally the entry-level aspirational good within the item category that becomes trashy: things that are classier can’t be at the bottom of the ladder. Easier still is just to avoid overpriced fashion purchases.
Am I cynical about design and style? Do I believe that it’s all just smoke and mirrors, writing this essay to criticize excessive consumer choice and marketing in capitalism? I certainly do, and perhaps that is unconsciously why I wrote this essay. As much as I loath participation in capitalism and mate-attraction described as self-expression, I guess everything is at the end of the day. Imagine that huh, following biological imperative to procreate and then calling it creativity. Couldn’t be me.
