By this point, we’ve all heard of quiet luxury. If you have been living under a rock and have no idea what that means- I’ll sum it up for you. If you do know what quiet luxury is and are frankly sick of hearing about it, don’t worry. This isn’t an article about quiet luxury; it’s an article about the opposite.
Quiet luxury is defined as “the new age of minimalism in fashion, and the focus of curating your closet around simple, timeless pieces”. Sounds like a great idea right? Truthfully it is, but we consumers get fatigued very quickly in this day and age. It’s why trends cycle in and out so rapidly. Quiet luxury has been on fashion’s radar since the middle of 2022. It was just a matter of time until quiet luxury began to receive some pushback from all of the bored maximalists out there.
This reverse trend, dubbed “loud luxury”, started slowly creeping its way onto runways in the Spring of 2022 with designers such as Fendi ( in the form of printed tights) and Louis Vuitton artfully slapping their logos all over their collections. Loud luxury will not be a revival of the 2016 era “Logomania”, but branded pieces are the beginning. The meat of loud luxury is in the details and has been all over the Spring 2024 runways. It’s in the bright colors of the Chanel show. It’s in the crazy intense silhouettes from the Rahul Mishra show. It’s in the metals and golds, and jewels in the Ronald van der Kemp collection. Loud luxury is everywhere you look.
Loud luxury was infiltrating the fashion world long before it was on runways. This past fall was all about pops of cherry red. Red is notoriously a fairly loud color. Cheetah print is also starting to make its way back into the trend cycle, predicted to be huge in 2024. The cheetah print is LOUD. Although these facets of loud luxury are all over the fashion scene, they are mostly seen enhancing outfits that fall under the quiet luxury label. A small red bag or heels paired with a neutral skirt and sweater; or a cheetah print top paired with sleek black pants. We are still living in a quiet luxury society, but we’re starting to see little defiance against the minimalist standard. My personal favorite new trend that is acting as an aperture into a loud fashion scene is fur.
Few things scream “I have a lot of money” like a dramatic fur jacket. Fashion influencers (aka the people responsible for every trend right now) started wearing fur as soon as the weather chilled down, and then it was seen being worn all over the world. Real fur, of course, is not ethically sourced, but luckily fur is incredibly easy to buy second hand, since every grandma ever probably donated one. This fur fall trend was the perfect transition into an “apres-ski” trend for the 2023 winter.
It’s about a month into 2024 and fur doesn’t seem to be going anywhere quite yet (especially since global warming is making this one of the coldest Januarys ever). Some people on social media have begun calling this miniature start to loud luxury the “Mob Wife Aesthetic”. While I do not think that is a good name for this trend (just like all titled micro-trends on TikTok), I do think this universal awareness of the decline in quiet luxury is important. This is one of the biggest transitions in fashion in a long time and it is happening in front of our very eyes.
Words by Alix Russell-Mann
Graphic by Anca Dubalaru