Luxury Friction
Cultural critic Heidi Julavits recently asked whether waiting has become “the ultimate luxury.”
In an era when shoppable runways and UberRush delivery has made possible low-friction access to luxury products, Julavits argues that waiting has new cultural cachet.
If immediacy is becoming a universal expectation, it stands to reason that luxury will slow down. We may start to see luxury brands engineering a certain amount of carefully calibrated friction back into the path to purchase, because luxury status signifiers have always been in opposition to the norms of mass culture.
As obesity rates ballooned, runway sample sizes shrank. Premium designers like Miuccia Prada delight in subverting the conventional rules of good taste which guide middle-class consumers, by clashing colors and prints and championing an aesthetic best described by the French phrase “jolie laide” — literally, “pretty ugly.” To be elite is, in a sense, to be contrarian.
Furthermore, in the wake of the global recession, sobered consumers have been gravitating towards luxury products and experiences which have a virtuous halo. After Occupy Wall Street, “Shop till you drop” now seems gauche rather than aspirational, and there’s a sense that luxury should be something one earns, or even suffers a little for. Waiting for a product aligns with this mindset, by demonstrating the virtue of self-discipline, and reframing the acquisitive desire from a greedy one to one that’s considered and restrained. At sparks & honey we call this outlook “New Sobriety.”
It’s the New Sobriety mindset which is driving the exaltation of wellness as the ultimate luxury aspiration. Invite-only fitness classes like those at Skinny Bitch Collective, charcoal-enriched detox tonics, and posh spiritual retreats like Restival are expensive and elitist, but feel culturally permissible to shout out about in a way that designer logo-ed items no longer do. It’s because no matter how high their price, no personal meditation coach or vegan meal delivery service shortcuts the road to a trim physique and a calm mind. Wellness is a luxury we’ll all always have to wait for.
