{"id":161842,"date":"2025-11-27T04:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T04:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/161842\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T04:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T04:12:09","slug":"five-things-i-learned-about-the-quiet-luxury-craze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/161842\/","title":{"rendered":"Five things I learned about the ‘quiet luxury’ craze"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw someone describe Kendall Roy\u2019s cardigan from Succession as a \u201cstatement piece\u201d. It cost \u20ac2,000, and the statement was: \u201cI\u2019m rich but also very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

I recently fell down an internet rabbit hole, reading about \u2018quiet luxury\u2019. The articles all said the same thing: the rich have gone quiet. They\u2019re dressing in beige, they\u2019re wearing no logos, and their jumpers look so soft you could use them to wipe Sudocreme onto a baby\u2019s bum.<\/p>\n

The idea is that true wealth doesn\u2019t shout. It whispers. Apparently, if you\u2019re truly rich, you no longer need to announce it with a gold chain or a handbag that costs more than a car. You simply glide into a room in neutral tones, smelling faintly of Scandinavian timber and inherited property.<\/p>\n

In Ireland, \u2018quiet luxury\u2019 is not new. It\u2019s called having notions while denying it. It\u2019s the woman who buys an expensive coat but says \u2018Ah, I just got it in the sale\u2019. It\u2019s the man who drives a new car but insists it\u2019s \u2018only the demo model\u2019. It\u2019s rich-people cosplay for monks. The fashion equivalent of saying \u2018I\u2019m not bothered\u2019… while secretly having a sock drawer spreadsheet.<\/p>\n

2. We\u2019ve been doing quiet luxury since the Celtic Tiger collapsed<\/p>\n

If you wanted to see real masters of \u2018quiet luxury\u2019, then you should have come to Ireland circa 2009. After the Celtic Tiger burst, the loud luxury \u2014 the chrome kitchen taps, the holiday homes in Bulgaria, the gleaming new BMWs \u2014 became shameful relics. We suddenly decided that anything too shiny was vulgar. So we all went beige. Literally.<\/p>\n

\" Bernard O’Shea: “We learned that showing off in Ireland doesn\u2019t make people admire you. Historically, this runs deep. Our relationship with wealth has always been complicated. Centuries of colonialism, famine, and forced emigration left us wary of anyone who seems too comfortable.”<\/p>\n

We swapped gold watches for brown belts. We replaced the Gucci handbags with \u2018a lovely one from Pennys\u2019. We took the property developer look \u2014 tan, teeth, tight suit \u2014 and replaced it with the \u2018civil servant on flexitime\u2019 aesthetic.<\/p>\n

It was national rebranding by stealth. We learned that showing off in Ireland doesn\u2019t make people admire you. Historically, this runs deep. Our relationship with wealth has always been complicated. Centuries of colonialism, famine, and forced emigration left us wary of anyone seeming too comfortable. The old Irish suspicion kicks in: \u2014 \u201cHe\u2019s doing very well for himself\u2026\u201d (translation: he\u2019s probably in trouble with Revenue). \u2014 \u201cShe\u2019s fierce, well turned-out.\u201d (translation: she\u2019s after someone).<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been quietly luxurious for generations.<\/p>\n

3. We spot wealth by texture, not logos<\/p>\n

Psychologists have studied how people perceive luxury. Our brains recognise \u2018quality\u2019 not by logos but by texture and fit. We subconsciously notice how fabric moves, how shoes are stitched, and how colours blend. Essentially, rich people\u2019s clothes look heavier. They hang differently. There\u2019s a quiet weight to wealth.<\/p>\n

So, I tried an experiment. I compared my \u20ac12 Penneys hoodie to a photo of a Loro Piana jumper online \u2014 the kind of brand beloved by billionaires and people called Rupert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Loro Piana jumper was made of baby cashmere brushed by monks in the Alps. I wore mine while changing a wheel in the rain. Both did their job, but only one came with a free existential crisis.<\/p>\n

4. How to do \u2018quiet luxury\u2019 Irish-style<\/p>\n

If you really want to embrace quiet luxury in Ireland, forget Herm\u00e8s or Loro Piana. True Irish quiet luxury isn\u2019t about cashmere. It\u2019s about longevity, craft, and a very specific kind of pride disguised as practicality.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how to do it properly:<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Coat for Weddings Only. You bought it in 2011. You still tell people: \u201cIt\u2019s a good one. It has never let me down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Scissors No One Touches. Every Irish house has one pair of scissors that belongs to the mother, and if you use it for anything other than fabric, you\u2019ll be written out of the will.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Good Room. Nothing says quiet luxury like a space so sacred even the Hoover isn\u2019t allowed in.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Sunday Carvery. Where the real stealth wealth is in knowing which hotel does the good gravy.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Valeted Car. Quiet luxury is when your car is clean enough to pass as someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

5. In the end, quiet luxury is just another noisy trend<\/p>\n

Like mindfulness, minimalism, or eating off grey plates, \u2018quiet luxury\u2019 is another way of saying \u2018I\u2019ve got my life together\u2019 \u2014 quietly, but publicly. It\u2019s an aesthetic of calm that requires a lot of money and even more self-awareness.<\/p>\n

What the trend really reveals is how tired people are of shouting. We\u2019ve gone from \u2018look at my success\u2019 to \u2018guess how subtle my success is\u2019. But it\u2019s still the same game \u2014 trying to prove we\u2019re doing better than the person next to us, just in a softer font.<\/p>\n

We keep inventing new ways to dress up the same old truth \u2014 that everyone, rich or poor, wants to feel like they\u2019ve made it. But \u2018making it\u2019 isn\u2019t about beige coats or minimalist living. It\u2019s about not needing to prove anything.<\/p>\n

If \u2018quiet luxury\u2019 really is about peace, ease, and comfort \u2014 well, most Irish kitchens have been doing it since the 1950s. We just called it \u2018putting the kettle on and minding your own business\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I saw someone describe Kendall Roy\u2019s cardigan from Succession as a \u201cstatement piece\u201d. It cost \u20ac2,000, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[46179,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-161842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-bernard-oshea","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}