Succession

Since everyone in the UK seems to be watching Succession – even the ones who hadn’t been, because on principle they hate watching anything that everyone else is watching – it’s come as no surprise that my inbox this week is full of pitches about “quiet luxury”.

Quiet luxury is the new Barbie movie, and beige is the new pink. Which seems to mean that any PR repping a brand whose current collection includes a navy jumper, a white shirt, a beige coat or a vest top in mushroom, greige or ecru is pitching the trend. No matter that said vest top costs £4.99 and was manufactured in Bangladesh: if it’s a neutral, apparently, it’s quiet luxury. 

Where to begin? Quiet luxury was initially supposed to be synonymous with stealth wealth: it was how rich people dressed, whispering their status because they were so financially and socially secure that they didn’t need to shout about it. Now, thanks to Tiktok and other social media platforms, it’s morphed into yet another “get the look” trend. Which is fine – that’s how things work – only it might not always get your product placed. Since cheap, mass produced clothes are the literal opposite of quiet luxury, rather than jumping blindly on the bandwagon, it might be wise to think of another way to promote them.