Quiet luxury
“About 2022 to 2024: logo-free, very expensive cashmere and wool basics (Loro Piana, The Row, Cucinelli), made a mass trend in 2023 by Succession, Paltrow's court clothes and TikTok.”
Quiet luxury is a way of dressing in which the money is in the cloth and the cut, not on the label. The clothes are plain: cashmere knits, wool coats, suede, simple trousers, mostly in cream, beige, grey, navy or sage, with no logo or only a very small one. Loro Piana, The Row and Brunello Cucinelli are its best-known names, and the point, as a luxury consultant told the Associated Press in April 2023, is that when you know, you know: only people who know the brands can read the price. The phrase became everyday language in 2023, when videos tagged 'quiet luxury' passed 35 billion views on TikTok by early May. The dates of the period are a convention. Nobody started or ended the trend on a given day. The base list says 2022 to 2024; this entry runs from the premiere of the third season of Succession on 17 October 2021, the first dated moment in the story, to the end of 2024.
The idea is much older than the name. Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) has a chapter on dress as a show of money, and the Associated Press traced the habit back to the American Gilded Age and to France in the 1700s. Dutch cloth merchants had themselves painted in sober black, as in Rembrandt's group portrait of the Amsterdam drapers' guild in 1662. The words 'stealth wealth' were in use too: on 27 January 2009, with the recession biting, the AP reported that retail experts called the rich shopper's wish to 'hide the labels' luxury shame, or stealth wealth, and that some customers asked for their purchases in plain white bags. In 2010 two marketing researchers, Jonah Berger and Morgan Ward, wrote about 'inconspicuous consumption'. In fashion, Bottega Veneta sold woven leather under the motto 'When your own initials are enough', which the V&A calls stealth luxury, and Phoebe Philo's Celine (2008 to 2017) made unfussy bags such as the Luggage tote (2010) objects of desire; fashion writers say it spoke of quiet luxury long before the phrase existed.
The houses behind the name were already old or already rich. Loro Piana, a wool family firm from Quarona in Piedmont, was founded in 1924; LVMH agreed on 8 July 2013 to buy 80 percent of it for 2 billion euros. Brunello Cucinelli started his cashmere business in 1978, runs it from the Umbrian hill village of Solomeo, and listed it in Milan in April 2012. The Row was founded in 2006 by the actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and won the American designers' award for womenswear in 2012. What changed in 2023 was the audience. HBO's Succession, about the Roy media dynasty, came back for its last season on 26 March; its costume designer Michelle Matland had dressed the family in quietly expensive clothes (Kendall's Loro Piana cap took her a search across the country), and in the first episode Tom sneers at a guest's 'ludicrously capacious' Burberry-check bag. From 21 March Gwyneth Paltrow's trial over a 2016 ski collision in Utah was on television every day, and her cream knits and green wool coat, without logos, were called 'billionaire chic' by the Guardian on 29 March; the jury found her not at fault on 30 March. On 22 April Sofia Richie married Elliot Grainge on the French Riviera, in a weekend that W magazine called a master class in stealth wealth. By July the shopping platform Lyst reported Loro Piana searches up 35 percent and its cap among the ten hottest products of the quarter.
The pushback came almost at once. On 27 April 2023 the student site The Tab asked how a 14,000-pound handbag could be quiet, and quoted a TikTok analyst who counted logos in about 60 percent of Miu Miu's, 42 percent of Fendi's and 30 percent of Chanel's 2023 collections. A Parsons professor told Refinery29 that proud talk of an 'old money' look was classist. The trend also never really cheapened: it stayed a way of spending a lot to look as if you spent little. In January 2024 a TikTok creator announced on 6 January that 'clean girl is out, mob wife era is in', furs and gold in place of beige, and Paris men's fashion week showed hushed tailoring beside loud colour. In March 2024 Bloomberg reported that Peruvian villagers who shear vicuñas for Loro Piana were paid about 280 dollars for the fibre in a 9,000-dollar sweater; Loro Piana rejected the accusation, and a US congressman asked for answers. In November 2024 Bain and Altagamma estimated that the luxury market would shrink by about 2 percent that year, with only a third of brands growing. No one event ended the period; the word simply became a cliché and the market turned.
The label faded, but the clothes did not. Cucinelli's sales, which had risen 23.9 percent to 1.139 billion euros in 2023, rose another 12.2 percent in 2024, to 1.278 billion euros. In September 2024 Bloomberg reported that Chanel's owners and the L'Oreal heiress had bought stakes in The Row at a value near 1 billion dollars, and Phoebe Philo's own label, launched on 30 October 2023, sold much of its first collection within hours. The supply-chain questions came back: in July 2025 a Milan court put Loro Piana under judicial administration over exploited labour at its subcontractors. What it left is a lesson of the 2020s: restraint is also a status signal, and some of the quietest houses, Cucinelli among them, kept growing in the luxury slowdown that followed. Cucinelli's own name for the look is 'gentle luxury'.
What happened
- 2021
HBO shows the first episode of the third season of Succession. The series, about the Roy media family, has been dressed since its 2018 premiere by the costume designer Michelle Matland in expensive clothes without logos; this season ends in Tuscany with a wedding.
- 2022
A cream cashmere ensemble by The Row (sweater, cardigan, scarf and knit trousers) stands in the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute show 'In America: A Lexicon of Fashion', which runs from 18 September 2021 to 5 September 2022; the Row's logo-free cashmere is in a museum before the trend has a name.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: where a cashmere ensemble by The Row stood in the Costume Institute's 'In America: A Lexicon of Fashion' (2021 to 2022)- 2023
Gwyneth Paltrow's trial over a 2016 ski collision opens in Summit County, Utah. In the first days she wears no logos: a cream Loro Piana turtleneck and a moss-green wool coat from The Row on 21 March, a G Label by Goop knit the next day. The images go round the world and the clothes are named stealth wealth.
Summit County Justice Center, Silver Summit, Utah: the courthouse where Gwyneth Paltrow's ski-collision trial was heard from 21 to 30 March 2023The last season of Succession begins with 'The Munsters', a party for Logan Roy's birthday. A guest, Bridget, arrives with a big Burberry-check bag and Tom mocks it as 'ludicrously capacious'; the line goes viral, and loud branding becomes the joke.
A jury in Park City decides that Terry Sanderson, not Paltrow, was at fault for the 2016 collision; she is awarded the 1 dollar she asked for. A day earlier the Guardian had called her court wardrobe 'billionaire chic', free of garish logos, and had named Loro Piana the leader of the quiet-luxury look.
The Associated Press runs a report by Leanne Italie headed 'Quiet luxury: No flash, no logos, but big-time style', carried by newspapers across the United States. It says 'stealth wealth, or quiet luxury' is a come-and-go trend that goes back to the Gilded Age and to France in the 1700s, names The Row, Brunello Cucinelli and Loro Piana, and quotes Matland: 'It shouldn't have bling quality.'
Sofia Richie, daughter of the singer Lionel Richie, marries Elliot Grainge at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc on the Cap d'Antibes. Her weekend of Chanel, Khaite and Proenza Schouler looks, with the ceremony gown made by Chanel, is called a master class in stealth wealth by W magazine and is taken up in TikTok videos.
Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France: where Sofia Richie married Elliot Grainge on 22 April 2023The student site The Tab publishes 'Sorry TikTok, quiet luxury is the last fashion trend we need right now', the first of many pushbacks. It asks how a 14,000-pound handbag can 'whisper', notes that Richie's wedding wardrobe included a Chanel playsuit covered in logos, and quotes a TikTok analyst who found logos in about 60 percent of Miu Miu's and 42 percent of Fendi's 2023 collections. It also reports a billion views for the 'old money aesthetic' tag.
Refinery29 reports that the 'quiet luxury' tag has passed 35 billion views on TikTok and 'stealth wealth' 600 million. It also gives the sharpest critique of the moment: Jonathan Square of Parsons says it is 'clearly classist' when people say outright that they are going for an 'old money' look.
Succession ends with its season-four finale. The BFI Southbank in London holds a 'Succession Finale' event that night with the series' writers, among them Jesse Armstrong, Lucy Prebble and Tony Roche.
Cambridge Dictionary's 'New words' blog lists 'quiet luxury' as a noun and defines it as 'a fashion trend where clothing is of very high quality, well-cut and in neutral colours', citing Refinery29.
Lyst's second-quarter index finds that the trend 'made a definitive mark': Loro Piana searches rose 35 percent and its baseball cap ranked tenth among the quarter's hottest products. Lyst's phrase for the buying is 'conspicuously inconspicuous'.
Phoebe Philo launches her own label online, with LVMH as a minority backer: a 150-piece first collection sold only on her website, much of it gone within hours. Fashion writers say her work at Celine had spoken of quiet luxury long before the phrase existed.
- 2024
A TikTok creator in New York, Kayla Trivieri, posts that 'clean girl is out, mob wife era is in': furs and gold instead of beige. The 'mob wife' tag passes 100 million views within weeks, and the press says it has replaced quiet luxury.
Paris men's fashion week ends. The Associated Press sums it up as 'a striking dichotomy', subtle elegance from Hermes and others against bold colour at Sacai; the quiet look is still on the runways but no longer the only story.
Bloomberg Businessweek publishes 'The Vicuñas and the $9,000 Sweater' and Bloomberg Originals a film, 'The Brutal Cost of Quiet Luxury'. The reporter Marcelo Rochabrún finds that villagers in Lucanas, Peru, who gather vicuña fibre for Loro Piana receive about 280 dollars for the amount in a 9,000-dollar sweater. Loro Piana formally rejects the allegations, and Congressman Robert Garcia writes to Loro Piana's chairman and chief executive asking for answers by the end of April.
Lucanas Province, Ayacucho, Peru: the Andean community whose villagers shear wild vicuñas for Loro Piana, the subject of Bloomberg's report of 13 March 2024Brunello Cucinelli reports 2023 revenues of 1,139.4 million euros, up 23.9 percent, and a net profit of 123.8 million, and says it expects about 10 percent growth in 2024. The chairman calls his style 'gentle luxury, a symbol of beauty within measure', his own name for the look.
Solomeo, near Perugia, Umbria: the medieval hill village that Brunello Cucinelli restored and where his company is headquarteredBloomberg reports that Chanel's owners, the Wertheimer family, and the L'Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers have bought minority stakes in The Row, valuing it at about 1 billion dollars; the Olsen sisters stay the majority owners. The parties did not comment.
Bain and Altagamma's yearly luxury study says the market will fall by about 2 percent in 2024, to 363 billion euros, and that only about a third of luxury brands will grow, against two-thirds a year earlier: the cooling that followed the quiet-luxury boom.
