In 2007, Dana Thomas published Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, and for anyone seeking to understand the business of aspiration, it felt like the lights had been turned on in a dark room. With groundbreaking research and vivid storytelling, Thomas chronicled the great transformation of luxury—the seismic shift from small, family-owned Maisons dedicated to craft, to publicly traded global conglomerates driven by shareholder value.
Deluxe was, for me and so many others, a foundational text. It masterfully explained how the 'democratization of luxury,' fueled by the rise of logos, IT bags, and emerging markets like Japan, had turned a niche industry into a global powerhouse. Thomas's story essentially concludes at the peak of this paradigm: luxury had become ubiquitous, wildly profitable, and accessible in a way it had never been before.
Her book left us with a profound, unspoken question: What happens now? What is the second act for an industry that has successfully sold its dream to the entire world?
Where My Story Begins
This is where the story of my book, Conspicuous, begins. It is an attempt to pick up the narrative thread where Deluxe left off, charting the aftershocks of that global expansion and exploring the new, far more complex paradoxes that define luxury today.
To do so, however, I first had to go back to the very beginning, to understand the source of the 'luster' Thomas argued was being lost.
Conspicuous first travels back in time to uncover the original alchemy of luxury. It explores how pioneers like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior didn't just create products; they bottled lightning. They masterfully blended the core ingredients of desire—scarcity, craftsmanship, and a powerful story, or mana—and supercharged it all with the invisible catalyst of Time.
This initial act sets the stage for the drama to come, defining the 'magic' that would later be scaled, stretched, and pushed to its breaking point.
The World After Deluxe
From there, the book moves into the modern era, the world after Deluxe. It documents the consequences of the very corporate machinery Thomas described. We see the 'growth ceiling' hit, where brands, having exhausted their geographic and demographic expansion, turn to hyper-aggressive price increases as their primary lever for growth.
This is the era of 'sticker shock,' of a quiet but palpable decline in quality, and of a consumer base that begins to question the very value proposition of the brands they once revered.
The New Forms of Capital
This brings us to the present moment, and to the brilliant work of Ana Andjelic. In The Business of Aspiration, Andjelic provides the essential theoretical framework for our time, arguing that the most valuable brands are no longer built solely on financial capital, but on social, cultural, and environmental capital.
She deconstructs how modern consumers are not just buying objects, but investing in identities, communities, and value systems.
Andjelic's work perfectly diagnoses the 'why' behind the great consumer migration my book chronicles. The 'values-driven exodus' I observed—where millions of disillusioned customers are abandoning traditional luxury—is a direct flight toward the forms of capital Andjelic describes.
They are seeking:
- The cultural capital of authenticity in the booming vintage market
- The social capital of community in niche, independent brands
- The environmental capital of sustainability, rejecting the opaque supply chains of the past
A Trilogy of Understanding
These three books, I believe, form a trilogy of understanding:
Dana Thomas's Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster is the indispensable story of luxury's corporate consolidation and the dilution of its original promise.
Ana Andjelic's The Business of Aspiration is the modern strategist's guide to the new currencies of value that are reshaping every industry.
My book, Conspicuous, serves as the narrative bridge between them. It tells the epic story that begins with the creation of luxury's magic, charts its collision with corporate reality, and follows its migration into the new forms of capital that will define its future.
Continuing the Conversation
Deluxe inspired a generation to look critically at the business of beauty and desire. It is in that spirit that I wrote Conspicuous, to continue that vital conversation and offer a new map for navigating the world that came next.
To explore the full story of this evolution, read Conspicuous: How Modern Luxury Redefined Craft, Clout, and Culture.