Why Novelty Still Matters for Luxury

Not so long ago, luxury brands fell headfirst into a digital arms race. NFTs, branded islands in the metaverse, a string of ‘phygital’ products that promised to future-proof relevance. It was all very now. Until it wasn’t.Much of it failed—not because it was digital, but because it was dislocated. Disconnected from spirit. From substance. From the slow-burn storytelling that gives a brand weight.It’s easy to dismiss these efforts as gimmicks. But the instinct behind them—curiosity, novelty, a desire to do something new—isn’t the problem. In fact, it’s precisely what the best brands should be chasing.Novelty is not a trend. It’s not a tactic. It’s a human need. A neurological truth.It’s what gives us the sensation of time stretching. Why holidays in childhood felt eternal. Why our first time somewhere lingers longer than the twentieth. The brain marks newness. Novelty breaks habitual cognition, forcing the mind to pay attention. And where there is attention, there is value.Which is why novelty—when done well—can be really meaningful.But this is the nuance. To be effective, novelty must be coherent. It must reinforce the spirit of the brand, not just decorate it. A moment of difference is powerful only if it makes sense within the story you’re telling. Otherwise it’s just noise, a dopamine hit with no recall.In a world saturated by optimisation, algorithmic predictions, endless scroll—novelty is the friction that brings us back to ourselves. It reminds us we are human. Curious. Sensory. In search of something that makes us feel.That’s the value of healthy friction. Not inconvenience, not delay, but moments engineered to shift pace.Brands often confuse this with excess—adding more, saying more, over-engineering touchpoints. Healthy friction is about intent rather than volume. A single sentence on a website, if shaped with care, can do more than a thousand-word brand film. A change in material. A ritualised welcome. A scent.We saw this when Six Senses Zighy Bay offered guests the option to paraglide into the property—an arrival experience that transformed a logistical step into a sensorial statement. Not a stunt, but a signal. You’re leaving the ordinary behind. You’re entering something else entirely. The act of descent becomes part of the story. Your body feels it before your brain does. It’s designed to be remembered.Or consider The Row’s retail stores. They don’t shout, or even speak. Sound is minimal. Lighting changes with the day. You are invited to notice the weight of silence, the grain of wood, the cut of cloth. It’s not theatre—it’s punctuation. Every detail has been calibrated to reward slowness. There’s no rush. No visual merchandising sleight of hand. Just space to see, to feel, to want.At Aman Tokyo, the tea ceremony offered on arrival demands presence. No checklists, no quick smiles. Just a quiet act of service that turns a transaction into a transition. The guest doesn’t just check in—they’re invited to recalibrate. It’s a form of temporal design. Slowness used as luxury. A small gesture, but one that reframes the entire stay.It’s novelty, not as spectacle, but as sequence.It’s no coincidence that the brands who do this well also tend to be those with strong founding spirits. Loewe’s live ateliers, staged during Salone del Mobile, didn’t just showcase product—they showcased process. Artisans working in real time. Material being shaped in front of you. Craft elevated into performance, and performance grounded in brand truth.Dior is another. Their use of tarot across campaigns and collections isn’t aesthetic decoration—it’s a nod to Christian Dior’s lifelong superstition and obsession with divination. The symbolism isn’t tacked on. It’s part of the house’s myth-making. A kind of internal logic that builds memory and consistency over time.None of this feels random. It feels considered; true to form.In a culture of mass content, where personalisation means everyone sees the same thing in slightly different colours, true originality is increasingly rare. Fresh takes on wellness like longevity clinics and sleep tourism have dispersed from innovative into the norm. The new premium today isn’t necessarily being new—it’s feeling new. Which is undoubtedly harder to fake.It means designing for surprise, but not randomness. For friction, but not frustration. It means slowing the scroll without stopping the sale. It requires brands to behave less like platforms and more like places—to make people arrive, not just land.At MOF, this thinking informs how we shape experiences. We build sensory signatures. Choreograph brand interactions over time. Introduce novelty not for disruption’s sake, but to signal value. To expand perception. To draw people in slowly, deeply, memorably.We see novelty as part of a wider creative ecosystem—linked to craft, context, emotion. A brand is more than what it says. It’s what it makes possible. How it frames time. How it turns a moment into meaning.Where can novelty add texture to your story? In what ways can it embody your values? How can we leverage it to trigger brand recall?Our version of luxury isn’t fast. It’s not loud or omnipresent. It lives in the gap between the expected and the extraordinary. In the connective tissue. This is where we innovate.Matter Of Form is a design consultancy specialising in brand, CX and digital innovation for timeless luxury brands. To find out more about what we do, get in touch with one of our consultants at hello@matterofform.com. Novelty has become a dirty word in luxury circles. But, in an age where algorithms flatten taste and brand moments vanish on contact, it holds strategic power. Though, not all novelty is made equal. We explore how brands can use healthy friction, sensory sequencing and original thinking to expand time, deepen memory, and build value without breaking trust.

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Why Novelty Still Matters for Luxury