How Luxury Fashion became Simple Fast Fashion

The history of luxury brands, how they’ve lost their luxe, and how to fix it

Luxury has lost its luxe.

The term luxury fashion probably calls to mind haute couture runways, designer labels, and red-bottomed shoes… but where did it all start?

What was originally a status symbol of the wearer’s access to foreign treasure (as only high-society could afford such travels) has become a mere dollar-value symbol in the rat race of fast fashion, contributing, in most cases, just as much harm to the environment as mass-produced bargain brands.

Before luxury was classy, it was taboo…

Luxury is derived from the Latin words luxus (meaning excess) and luxuria (meaning rankness or offensiveness);

In Elizabethan times, luxury was associated with adultery, but if we go even further back, we find that prior to the Romans adopting the Greek’s amicable attitude toward extravagance, they had formal legislation to regulate spending on luxury.

Luxury fashion’s first moment, if we were to pin it down historically, was via the Silk Road in the second century. In AD 166, the first Roman envoy (sent by Marcus Aurelius) arrived in China to bring back…