I recently learned about the trend that is all the rage among some young people: dressing in the style of the characters from
Succession
.
The idea is to look rich and, of course, it is a totally aspirational fashion.
What it says is that, if you have a lot of money,
you don't need to shout it from the five pieces of your outfit with Gucci logos or iconic Prada patterns: just
a monochromatic outfit and carefully chosen accessories are enough.
The trend is called
quiet luxury
and it has been the topic of conversation on social networks for more than two years.
It is
a style that is easy to imitate but difficult to acquire
because it really only works when each piece is cut with a perfect mold and made with quality materials, such as silk, cashmere and leather.
When the materials are bad, it simply shows.
The media has already echoed this trend.
You can find guides for dressing like this in magazines like
Vogue
or newspapers like
The Daily Mail
, which tell you the virtues of a very common sweatshirt that costs $1,400 or a $700 baseball cap, which is made with some percentage of cashmere.
Also analyzed are the outfits that Gwyneth Paltrowd wore last year during a trial and that many point out as
the epitome of that “silent luxury.”
Some even speculate that it was her low-profile wardrobe that decided her triumph over the man who had sued her for crashing him on a ski slope.
Succession's wardrobe – a sea of different shades of beige, black and gray –
seems very boring to me.
I suppose that, in an attempt at verisimilitude, its creators will have taken as models the truly rich people like Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg, who, in truth, do not stand out for being great masters of style.
I understand: the idea behind the well-known sport coat and khaki pants is
“if there is wealth, let it not be noticed.”
It's just that the very rich don't need to stand out from the crowd.
In fact, it's best for them to disappear behind a monochromatic outfit.
More than a synonym for elegance, these outfits seem to me to be a clue to a hidden truth: what they say is that
true luxury lies elsewhere.
Where?
In the privately owned islands, in their ability to enjoy clean air and pristine nature in exchange for exorbitant rates in exclusive and exclusive clubs, in the decision to send rockets into space and build very expensive toys and cars just because they can.
The rich from traditional families (not the new ones, who were always despised for their supposed “bad taste”) claim in each generation the right to define what style is, namely: the opposite of ostentation.
But, if we look at other decades, having style was not always synonymous with zero risk.
And “careerists” like Oscar Wilde also left their mark in the world of fashion,
dressing according to their overwhelming personality.
There's a reason this Irish writer said that "a fashion is a form of ugliness so absolute and unbearable that it has to be changed every six months."