Kill the Kitsch: Quiet Luxury
Kill the Kitsch: Quiet Luxury
Introducing installment I of Kill the Kitsch, my series examining the aesthetic deceptions shaping our contemporary moment.
$5,000 on a sweater that could pass for Uniqlo? Welcome to quiet luxury, the aesthetic of the ultra-wealthy, where restraint screams exclusivity. It's the aesthetic of stealth wealth: understated colors, invisible craftsmanship, and prices that contradict the supposed humility. Quiet Luxury for Quiet Luxury’s sake? I Kall Kitsch.
Defining Kitsch:
Kitsch is the industrialization of beauty. As Clement Greenberg argued, it's art that provides pre-digested emotional effects, asking nothing of its audience but passive consumption. It simulates genuine feeling while evacuating actual risk or difficulty. Milan Kundera went further, identifying kitsch as "the absolute denial of shit," a beautifying lie that excludes everything problematic from its field of vision. It's not just bad taste, it's an existential cop-out.
Quiet Luxury - Kitsch for the Knowledge Economy:
"Quiet luxury" is the contemporary uniform of the ultra-wealthy: neutral tones, logo-free handbags, and watches that whisper rather than shout. It transforms the absence of symbols into the ultimate symbol. The lack of logos is the logo. A Brunello Cucinelli blazer doesn’t scream wealth, it screams I don’t need to scream. This “modesty” demands an audience versed in elite semiotics: a handbag’s stitching, a sweater’s hand-feel, a watch’s weight. It’s kitsch for those who trade in insider knowledge, not just cash.
The Aesthetic Prison of Quiet Luxury:
Here's where it becomes truly suffocating: quiet luxury demands performative indifference to the very thing you're obsessing over. Spend hours researching the perfect "effortless" white shirt, $3,000 on an unbranded bag, years cultivating an eye for imperceptible details. Most importantly, pretend you don't care about any of it.
Let's be clear: this is not a luxury takedown. Buy the ridiculous things. Wear the $10,000 jacket covered in crystals. Carry the handbag shaped like a miniature poodle. Traditional luxury at least possesses the honesty of gaudiness. It announces itself, revels in excess, admits its materialism. The person in head-to-toe Versace baroque print isn't lying to you. They're not pretending their consumption is actually anti-consumption. Still, there's something genuinely delightful about cultivating taste and finding your people through subtle signals. Moments of mutual recognition—catching someone else clocking your perfectly-cut coat, the silent nod between devotees of obscure Japanese denim—create real connection. The insidious twist of quiet luxury isn't the refinement or the insider knowledge; it's when we turn it into a joyless performance of denial.
