Why is Quiet Luxury Failing?

With the recent surge of nostalgia for 2000s fashion and culture, the more niche subcultures of that time have, naturally, also resurfaced, with a highly adored one being the 2000s Tuscan Mom. This aesthetic group is a combination of warm orange lighting, cocoa bean vanilla, and bouncy pin-curls with deep square French tips. This favouring of flashy styles as opposed to the quiet 'no brand' luxury that has been heavily superimposed could highlight a recent shift in public attitudes towards elitism and status.

In recent decades, we had seen a shift in the entertainment cultures, with general publics viewing celebrities and public figures as spectacles as opposed to being the entertainment for those who were rich and bored. This marked a notion that those placed in these higher positions were given the authority, so long as they fulfilled their respective diversionary purposes. We could see this playout clearly in tabloids and magazines of the 90s and early 2000s, where any and all celebrities would be subjected to intense and extensive criticism.

And so, when contemporary public figures such as Kendall Jenner and Sofia Richie began acting as the face of a new ideal for aesthetics, all stylists swung back to promoting the 'Old Money' ideal. However, other than the influencers and journalists, it appeared to have been responded to with top-down apathy, and everyone stuck with the maximalist style's of the 2000s. A reason for this indifference could be attributed to the industries' favouring of classist, status signalling aesthetics, over aesthetics that can be widely credited to Black communities. Society is no longer responding obediently to the promotion of aspirational consumption towards fashion choices made by the white elite to erase native cultural expressions of other communities.

The Tuscan Mom aesthetic is glamorous, and cozy, with an Italian/Mediterranean touch, signifying a yearning for class comfort and nostalgia. It is representative of the idealized 2000s suburban dream home, that has been lived in and is approachable, all whilst wealthy and luxurious. This is the expectation and social contract that society requires for celebrities and public figures