In economic downturns like the one we find ourselves in now, luxury proves its resilience time and time again, but that seemingly innate quality shouldn’t be mistaken for immunity.
Though the U/HNW are less likely to forego luxury purchases, there is a mindset shift — particularly among Millennials and Gen Z — towards savvier spending. Specifically purchases that can be seen as investments, in both the product and the brand itself.
Legacy, history and heritage will always be heavy hitters with the loyalists among us, but with younger high-net-worth-ers less into brand fidelity than ever, how can fine jewellery houses find fealty in future luxurians?
Top Jewellery Market Trends: 2023 & Beyond
DESIGNER DISRUPTION
In the most fed-up of moments, it’s easy to view both Gen Z and Alpha as agents of chaos.
They’re recalibrating the world, luxury included.
For those who fear, or are even wary of change, they’re cast as dystopian makers. But one person’s disruption is another’s enrichment.
Like it or not, these younger cohorts will have the spending power to make or break brands in no less than a decade, and they wield that power confidently.
These are generations who shaped their values and attitudes early, caring little about pre-millennium hardships but a lot about sustainability, social impact and doing better, especially when it comes to luxury. And along with their higher standards, they’re willing to pay higher prices — citing that investment mindset emerging among many.
In homage to these attitudes, fine jewellery newcomers are tearing up the product design rulebook; embracing the radical, finding opportunity in inconsistency, breaking binaries and subverting convention.
Challenger brands and emerging players are producing genderless collections with a seditious undercurrent that plays into threads known to be tangled with this generation.
On the runway this is playing out in punk details; bold cuffs, hardware-heavy chains, chokers, as well as pared-back religious iconography. Embellishment to the point of impracticality.
Other aesthetic arenas straddle the boundary between avant-garde and mainstream.
From psychedelic, fantastical expressions of self, oversaturated with funky shapes and colour (see Bea Bongiasca), to representations of our digi-hybrid existence coupled with underground culture and old-stool grunge, the stylistic choices of upcoming designers are tapping into these niches, all of which are tethered to a seemingly unquenchable thirst for nostalgia.