My memo is four Korean words.
“화려하지 않지만 소박하지 않은.”
“Not flashy, but not plain.”
I wrote it years ago, about a feeling I liked. Then, in the spring of 2023, the internet gave that feeling a name.
What does quiet luxury mean?
Short answer: Quiet luxury is expensive style with no logos and no flash. The term went mainstream in spring 2023, and the idea is that people who know will recognize the quality, and nobody else needs to.
The Associated Press covered it in April 2023 and opened like this: “They’re the biggest of brands. But with no logos. And that’s the whole point.” A luxury retail consultant, Robert Burke, summed it up: “When you know, you know, and that’s sort of the point.”
The AP also called it “a come-and-go trend,” with roots in the Gilded Age and in France in the 1700s. Patricia Mears, deputy director of the Museum at FIT, told the AP that at the end of the 18th century, men turned away from powdered wigs and lace, and the new industrialists showed their power “in a uniform, the dark suit.”
So the dark suit was the original quiet luxury. Expensive. Boring-looking. On purpose.
Where my memo is different
Reading my memo again, I notice it isn’t about expensive things at all.
Quiet luxury, the way the AP describes it, is wealth that hides. Money you can only see if you have money too. That’s a club. A very quiet club with a very loud entry fee.
My memo is about a middle. Something with care in it that doesn’t shout about it.
For me, that middle is mostly about time. I like to use things for a long time. New things are nice, but the things that have slowly shaped themselves to me, to my hands and my habits, feel better than any luxury brand.
You can’t buy that. You can only wait for it.
Korea leans flashy
In Korean, the two words in my memo pull in opposite directions. 화려하다 is showy and eye-catching. 소박하다 is plain and humble.
If you ask me, Korea leans toward 화려하다. Sometimes it feels like half the men have eyebrow tattoos, and like a lot of people believe life falls apart without a luxury bag.
I get it. A logo is a fast way to say something about yourself.
But I keep coming back to a simpler idea. The bag doesn’t need to be the luxury item.
The person does.