As someone who loves history and talks about it more often than might be warranted (sorry to my friends), the evolution of luxury is uniquely interesting because it is embedded in some of our most significant historical events, places, and stories. A desire for luxury created the Silk Road, launching the world into the globalized market we know today. It has started wars and ended them; it even prompted people to start a protest that later led to the establishment of the United States (hello, Boston Tea Party!).
Luxury directly and indirectly plays an important role in our lives – not just in history, but today, too. It used to be synonymous with scarcity, craft, and prominence. What’s perplexing about modern luxury, though, is that it has somehow morphed into a marketing category. As I wrote in part 1 of this 3-part series, you are often not buying what you think you’re buying. For example, manufacturers often dilute authentic vanilla and cashmere with a synthetic filler; sometimes there’s no trace of the authentic component at all.
How did luxury evolve from genuine exorbitance and exclusivity to a synthetic version of the original, all with unclear messaging about what’s real and what’s not?
This article is part 2 of a 3-part series in which I dive into the lies of luxury and the biggest problems in modern luxury:
- Part 1: Why you’re not getting what you think you are
- Part 2 (this article): How we got here – the cultural and economic history
- Part 3: What does it matter? The moral distinction between “affordable alternative” and “deliberate deception“
What Luxury Used to Look Like
Historically, the term “luxury” referred to items that were scarce by virtue of the materials, skills, and logistics required to produce them. For example, silk from China or cashmere from Pakistan required months of manufacturing and subsequent travel along trade routes, not to mention the years of training it took for artisans to make something spectacular from these fibers.
Luxury didn’t used to be a branding decision. In fact, when I think about the early days of silk production, which began around 2,700 BC, that concept sounds almost ludicrous. Luxurious items were exclusive and demanded a premium because of their geographic and material reality.
I should note, though, that there’s no exact origin of the concept of luxury; however, at all points in human history, there have been social hierarchies or leading groups in society. As a consequence, there have always been items that communicate the status of these higher-echelon groups, which thus serve a “luxury” function. This is a concept that research duo Jean-Noel Kapferer and Vincent Bastien wrote in their 2009 book, The Luxury Strategy.
As an example, the authors described the language of luxury in ancient Egypt, whereby the elites showcased their status through opulent items like perfumes and jewels – not just in life but in the afterlife as well.
Needless to say, we have come a long way since ancient Egypt or the Silk Road, and the last 200 years or so have drastically changed how we shop. Industrialization has brought about a multitude of positive changes for society and quality of life, but it’s also influenced our concept of luxury, and not always for the better.
The Evolution of Luxury Through Industrialization
The impact of industrialization and even the post-war era was and continues to be wide-reaching. It changed how we size clothes, how people conceptualized money and spending, and, most importantly for the luxury sector, it enabled factories to produce at scale.
Before industrialization, quality was self-regulating. At a much smaller scale, craftsmen and women marked their own goods, and reputation was important. (We can see this in the early days of the “made in” label in Europe). By increasing production scale, the factory system made individual accountability harder to maintain; volume targets largely replaced it.
For example, the Industrial Revolution saw the mechanization of silk and cashmere, two luxury items I wrote about in part 1 of this series. These mechanical looms replaced hand-weaving, making handmade items an outlier rather than the standard. Consequently, the slow, laborious process of craftsmanship and the creation of true luxury goods became a bottleneck.
Interestingly, industrialization didn’t hamper people’s desire for luxury. Instead, a middle class emerged that wanted access to it, and brands like Louis Vuitton (founded in 1854) and Cartier (founded in 1847) emerged to fill this niche.
As industrialization sped up the production of goods, globalization also significantly shaped how we perceive luxury and what it looks like in modern life.
How Globalization Accelerated Shifts In the Luxury Market
As I mentioned, globalization is another chapter of the evolution of luxury. As the increase in factories meant that manufacturers could produce goods more quickly, globalization meant that the raw materials for these goods could be sourced from almost anywhere in the world.
Supply chains stretched to so many countries and passed through so many hands that provenance became incredibly difficult to verify. For example, a “Made in Italy” tag could legally include components manufactured elsewhere, as long as the final processing occurs in Italy.
This chapter is really where we see labels like the aforementioned country-of-origin label stop meaning what consumers think it means. After all, if supply chains can now stretch across the world, that creates international competition for the lowest labor and material costs. Luxury practices like honey laundering, cashmere blending, and synthetic vanilla (which I wrote about in part 1) thus became economically logical, albeit still frustrating for people who want the authentic.
It’s partially because of globalization that modern luxury is now so deeply rooted in brand culture and experiences. Let’s take Bulgari as an example: founded in 1884 in Rome, the brand is known for its jewelry, watches, accessories, fragrances, and leather goods. Despite this history, or perhaps because of it, the brand has grown its market strategy over the years to sell not just objects but also stories and cultural values. For example, it operates Bulgari Hotels in the world’s most luxurious locations. You can not only wear Bulgari, but be immersed in it, too.
In an article for Branding Mag, author Maurizio Ribotti writes about the necessary shift from traditional luxury to modern luxury, explaining that it’s “no longer something you own; it’s no longer defined by price, exclusivity, or brand affiliation. Luxury is now experienced. It moves seamlessly between heritage and contemporary brands, blending authentic storytelling with experiential marketing and embracing innovation without losing its roots.”
In the face of industrialization and globalization, luxury has had to transform over the years to remain exclusive, opulent, and relevant. It has also changed to meet the demands of the modern consumer, which continues to evolve amid the Internet, social media, and increasing connectedness.
The Role of Consumer Culture in the Evolution of Luxury
Consumer culture has changed over the decades; a good starting point to consider is the emergence of “populuxe” in the 1950s and 60s. A portmanteau of “popular” and “luxury,” populuxe describes the aesthetic of designing mass consumer goods to look luxurious, even when they weren’t.
You can picture pastel-colored radios and clocks that used both geometric and curvy design elements. The pastel mimicked chrome, and the shapes evoked an expensive design aesthetic. This aesthetic is one of the first examples of the question of authenticity within the evolution of luxury.
Later on, a sense of aspirational wealth changed how we view luxury. After the social turmoil of the 60s and economic stagnation of the 70s, conscious consumption defined the 80s as the economy recovered. Americans launched into aspirational spending, and brands like Nike (“Just Do It”) began to sell lifestyles and identities, not just products.
Couple that with the emergence of mall culture and popular TV shows that flaunted wealthy lifestyles, and it’s no wonder how the idea that ordinary people should look wealthy became normalized.
Fast-forward to now, and the pressure on ordinary people to look wealthy hasn’t just become normalized; it’s the standard. The Internet and social media are only adding to this pressure.
Social Media: The Final Stage in the Evolution of Luxury
At the final stage in the evolution of luxury is the introduction of social media, which places more pressure than ever before to look good and share it with others. There is also an unprecedented level of connectedness that we now share with our friends, acquaintances, and celebrities.
Celebrity culture, powered by global media, has become a phenomenon. As Ribotti wrote, modern luxury has morphed into products and experiences; it has also become closely associated with celebrity culture. We have more exposure to celebrities than ever before, creating a desire for consumption that is no longer about owning the real thing but about owning its signal.
Beyond celebrities, a simple scroll on your phone inundates you with shopping hauls, dupe culture, and product reviews, all crafted by influencers who typically have the means to buy true luxury. With fast fashion creating dupes and accelerating trend cycles, everyone can look wealthy online, thereby creating even greater pressure to produce luxury aesthetics at non-luxury prices.
We can conceptualize much of today’s luxury as people seeking proximity to the life they want. It’s an interesting shift because savings at all levels of society have declined since the 1980s, and household debt in the US (credit cards, auto loans, student loans, mortgages) is at an all-time high.
Enshittification and Why Quality Has Become Optional
For most of the history of the luxury category, quality was a by-product of the hard work, skill, and time required to produce luxury items. For example, to produce authentic vanilla beans, each vanilla orchid (which I talked about in part 1) must be hand-pollinated to grow the vanilla bean, which is then dried over months.
It is exhausting to think about this process, let alone enact it. It’s this very arduousness that provided an opportunity for synthetic vanilla to carve out such a huge market share, thus exemplifying the concept of enshittification.
Coined by author and tech activist Cory Doctorow in 2022, enshittification (now in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, by the way) describes the gradual degradation of quality across products and platforms. This happens when the profit motive outweighs craft.
Recent Examples of Luxury Enshittification
In the context of luxury, ponder this example: in 2025, TikToker Janet Lin (@janetlinxo) posted a video of her Goyard tote bag supposedly having deteriorated in the sun. The leather-bound top handles melted together, and the bright blue dye rubbed off on her white shirt.
The bag, made of Goyardine canvas, retails for a minimum price of around $2,000 USD. Could you imagine something like that happening 50 years ago, let alone in 1853 when the company was established?
Another such example is one I saw unfolding in real time (well, as real as it gets on social media). In September 2025, New York-based model and influencer Wisdom Kaye (whose outfits I’ve praised in a previous article) went shopping and spent $18,000 at Italian fashion label Miu Miu.
Then a true fashion tragedy happened: as he says, “as soon as I get home, everything broke.” A gold button, a silver zipper; these shouldn’t break as soon as you open your bags at home. In his words, the experience was “genuinely f**king abysmal.”
Enshittification’s Role in the Evolution of Luxury
When we consider the bigger picture of the evolution of luxury, it’s clear that with each step towards what most would consider “progress” – machinery, the Internet, social media, there has also been an opportunity for the enshittification of luxury. There are many reasons as to why this is happening; for one, it’s because they can.
Brands can capitalize on their heritage and equity, creating a lag between the decline in quality and consumers’ awareness. They can leverage their legitimately impressive heritage for years before the market notices. Using the Goyard example, Lin was paying $2,000 based on the brand’s 170-year reputation, not necessarily on verified current quality standards.
If we can’t imagine something like what happened to Lin and Kaye happening 50 years ago, then what can we anticipate as consumers for the next 50 years?
Where Does the Evolution of Luxury Go From Here?
I will do a deeper analysis of why it matters in part 3 of this series.
The evolution of luxury is far from done, and in an interesting twist of fate, the market may be course-correcting. Modern luxury is becoming less about logos and more about legacy, experiences, and culture. Brands that thrive will be those that focus on authenticity, sustainability, and lifestyle.
In this current wave of globalization and industrialization, consumers have a greater voice than ever before, and they have been using it to push back. For example, in 2021, LVMH, OTB, Prada Group, and Cartier, part of Richemont, established the Aura Blockchain Consortium. Based in Switzerland, it aims to use blockchain and other technologies to advance sustainable, socially responsible, and consumer-focused business practices throughout the entire lifecycle of luxury products.
Though small steps, they’re telling: massive conglomerates like these wouldn’t invest in provenance technology unless they felt pressure to prove something.
For today’s consumers, perceived value isn’t just the logo or the country of origin. Instead, people (myself included) want to know about the creative process, the story, and the materials that bring products to life.
The question remains, though: is this a genuine shift, or is “transparency” becoming the next marketing category? We arrived at this questionable point in the evolution of luxury through this same process: the image of authenticity outlasting its reality.
Whether the next chapter is any different depends less on what brands promise and more on what consumers demand, and whether we’re educated enough to identify that distinction.
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