Image: Loro Piana campaign

“To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has.
To simulate is to feign having what one does not have.”
— Jean Baudrillard, Simulacres et Simulation (1981)

When everyone knows the code, nothing is quiet anymore. What began as a whisper of wealth has turned into a marketing megaphone. The aesthetic of quiet luxury has become a caricature of itself —Loro Piana cashmere, Zegna sneakers, Brunello Cucinelli cardigans.
Once-discreet codes have been decoded and once everyone shouts the same aesthetic, it is not quiet anymore.

The Silent Rebellion

Quiet luxury has always been rebellion disguised as refinement — a cyclical rejection of excess. From the 18th-century aristocrats who traded court opulence for sober tailoring to the Gilded Age elites perfecting invisibility as the nouveau riche rose around them, status through restraint became the ultimate social code. Thorstein Veblen called it pecuniary emulation — the endless imitation of those above¹. The pendulum has swung ever since: after 1950s architectural couture came 1980s maximalism; after Versace came Prada and Jil Sander; after logo mania came the #QuietLuxury revival.

From Quiet Code to Loud Cliché

Born from craft, not marketing, the great houses of quiet luxury became the natural language of old wealth — built on three constants: quality, scarcity, and longevity. Brands like Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli defined the Quiet Luxury aesthetic — writing its code in cashmere and camel tones.

Loro Piana, founded in 1924 in Quarona, Italy, began as a family wool merchant sourcing the world’s rarest fibres — cashmere from Mongolia, vicuña from the Andes. Its first clients were European aristocrats and northern industrialists who valued texture over status. When LVMH acquired 80 % of the brand in 2013, sales hovered around €700 million; by 2023 they had reached about €2.4 billion² ³ ⁴ — proof that even silence scales once the code is no longer secret.

Brunello Cucinelli followed a similar climb. From €322 million in 2013 to €1.28 billion in 2024⁶ ⁷, his humanistic capitalism turned ethics into aspiration. Both brands defied gravity in a year of contraction: while the global luxury market slipped about 2% in 2024 (Bain & Company)⁸, Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli grew nearly +10%. Their success wasn’t about marketing; it was obsession — an unrelenting pursuit of excellence.

The Economics & Psychology of the Simulacrum

The Economics and Psychology of the Simulacrum

What began as a psychological code became an economic engine.
Between 2020 and 2024, the global cashmere-clothing market rose from roughly USD 2 billion to over USD 3 billion⁹ ¹⁰ ¹¹, propelled by the worldwide appetite for the stealth-wealth aesthetic. Once a quiet niche, cashmere became the ultimate entry ticket to the old-money look — a way for aspirational consumers to buy the illusion of heritage, one beige sweater at a time.

But as demand soared, digital theatre took over. Algorithms turned discretion into spectacle. By 2023, #QuietLuxury had nearly 40 billion views, while #OldMoney reached several billion — turning coded restraint into public performance.
Influencers taught “how to look expensive without logos”; Zara and Uniqlo launched cashmere capsules; even Net-a-Porter built a Quiet Luxury Edit¹³. Muted beige became the new billboard, camel cashmere the new clickbait.

Why did it seduce so many?
As Robert Greene writes in The Art of Seduction, humans are drawn to fantasy and illusion — the desire to belong to a world just out of reach¹⁴. Quiet luxury sold precisely that: insider access without admission.
Brands like Sporty & Rich and Totême built empires on that fantasy, selling cotton sweats and minimalist separates as affordable symbols of old-money composure. Their imagery — neutral palettes, serif fonts, grainy film tones — mirrors the visual grammar of Loro Piana or The Row, proving that even restraint can be replicated and resold.

In an attention span measured in seconds, effortlessness itself became evidence of superiority¹⁵.
To look educated, disciplined, or tasteful, one only had to imitate those who already were.
The quiet part of the trend became the loudest sound in the room — amplified by algorithms, monetized by marketing, and stripped of mystery.
The simulacrum was complete: the uniform became the logo.

Collateral Damage: The Creative Recession

The mass adoption of quiet luxury reshaped not only taste but creativity itself.
As conglomerates chase quarterly performance, everyone wanted a slice of the beige cake — and most brands began to simulate what they are not. From Paris to Milan, runways blur into seas of black totes, camel coats, and ivory cashmere for the “new minimalist” client.
Luxury’s greatest strength — reinvention — has been tempered by the fear of standing out.
Luxury once competed on imagination; today it competes on stock price.
And that may be the quietest tragedy of all.

The CFO Intake

The paradox of quiet luxury is that while most brands spent fortunes imitating a heritage they never owned, its true archetypes — Hermès, Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli — quietly evolved.
Their new language is subtle yet decisive: younger clients, sharper cuts, richer textures.
They are leaving the overcrowded world of beige minimalism for something rarer — sophisticated authenticity.

“Quiet luxury didn’t die from noise alone; it died from imitation. What comes next will belong to those who dare to whisper again.”

In a world addicted to visibility, the rarest luxury is to be unseen yet remarkable.

Footnotes

¹ Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).
² Yahoo Finance / Reuters (2013) – LVMH acquires 80 % of Loro Piana (≈ €700 m sales).
³ Fashion United (2024) – “Loro Piana’s Quiet Ascent to Become LVMH’s Hermès.”
⁴ Vogue Business (2024) – “Frédéric Arnault Becomes CEO of Loro Piana.”
⁶ Brunello Cucinelli Investor Relations FY2013 Results (€322.5 m).
⁷ Brunello Cucinelli Investor Relations FY2024 Results (€1.278 bn).
⁸ Bain & Company, Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study 2024 (-2 %).
⁹ Polaris Market Research (2021) – Cashmere Clothing Market (USD 2.07 bn).
¹⁰ IMARC Group (2024–2033) – Cashmere Clothing Market (USD 3.0 bn; CAGR 4.9 %).
¹¹ Fortune Business Insights (2024) – Cashmere Clothing Market (USD 3.48 bn).
¹² TikTok Business Creative Center (2024) – #QuietLuxury ≈ 1.9 bn views.
¹³ Net-a-Porter (2023) – Quiet Luxury Edit campaign.
¹⁴ Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction (2001).
¹⁵ Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) – “What you see is all there is.”