The Generational Shift in Fashion and Luxury

Keywords: luxury, fashion, generations, Gen Z, Millennials, status consumption, resale, emerging markets, brand attachment, brand love, segmentation, personas, cultural consumption, attention economy

The 2023–2025 period revealed a different picture: the personal luxury goods market stalled, the customer base shrank for the first time in more than a decade, and younger consumers were the first to pull back. At the same time, adjacent segments—such as certified pre-owned goods, experiences and beauty—grew by offering these same consumers different kinds of value.

The research question guiding this study is therefore: does the generational shift in fashion and luxury represent a structural retreat by younger generations, or a transformation in the meaning and channels of luxury consumption? It leads to five sub-questions: (a) what factors explain the disengagement observed between 2023 and 2025; (b) in what direction are younger consumers’ preferences moving; (c) how is the shift distributed across major geographic markets; (d) how does emotional attachment to brands change across generations, and what does that mean for segmentation and targeting; and (e) what changes in cultural consumption and lifestyles—music, film, television, entertainment, device use, alcohol and substances—help explain the shift?

The thesis proposed here is that this is primarily a transformation, but its scale has been underestimated by business models built on continuous price increases and the centrality of the logo as a status signal.

The category must nevertheless be used with care. Authors such as Duffy (2021) have shown that many differences attributed to generations actually result from age, income or historical period, which affect everyone at the same time. This study therefore adopts a generational perspective without treating it as deterministic: differences between cohorts are considered relevant only when they interact with economic constraints and changes in supply.

Eckhardt, Belk and Wilson (2015), and Currid-Halkett (2017), have described the rise of inconspicuous consumption: as luxury goods become widespread and counterfeits become accessible, status shifts towards knowledge, experience, health and ethics. This body of work provides a useful lens for recent phenomena such as quiet luxury, the declining appeal of logos and the shift in spending towards wellbeing.

Two methodological cautions are necessary. First, industry data are produced by consultancies and banks using proprietary methods that are not always comparable: estimates of customers leaving the market, for example, vary according to the time period considered. Second, 2026 forecasts were revised several times during the year in response to geopolitical and energy shocks. Where sources differ, the text makes this explicit.

The personal luxury goods market fell from €364 billion in 2024 to an estimated €358 billion in 2025, a 2% decline equivalent to zero growth at constant exchange rates. Bain interpreted this as a sign of market maturity rather than renewed momentum. Total luxury spending, including goods and experiences, stood at around €1.44 trillion.

Table 1. Key indicators for the luxury market, 2024–2026. Author’s analysis of the cited sources.

**Price.** According to HSBC, average prices for personal luxury goods in Europe have risen 52% since 2019. The increases far outpaced inflation and wage growth, making occasional purchases—the pattern typical of aspirational consumers—unaffordable. McKinsey estimates that around half of the market’s value comes from people who buy only one or two items a year.

**Concentration on top clients.** Brands have shifted resources towards the very wealthiest customers, who account for nearly half of the market. Bain’s Federica Levato has observed that this strategy made Gen Z feel betrayed, because the people receiving priority are not young consumers and often not even their parents. It is an example of how a strategy that is rational in the short term can erode the future customer base.

**A crisis in perceived value for money.** Many young consumers no longer take for granted that a luxury price guarantees superior quality. Investigations into supply chains, the spread of high-quality replicas and the transparency of social media have made prices harder to justify.

**Economic constraints.** Disengagement is not only cultural. Youth unemployment in China stood at 16.9% in November 2025, while the cost of living has squeezed young people’s disposable income in Europe and the United States. As Bain notes, in uncertain conditions Gen Z will be among the last segments to return, simply because it has fewer resources.

Resale also changes the logic of buying new: consumers check an item’s resale value before purchasing, treating some goods as assets. Experiential luxury is growing in parallel. For 2026, Bain-Altagamma forecasts growth of around 4% for hotels, fine dining, cruises and wine-related experiences—higher than for personal luxury goods. Even cars, a historic status symbol, are losing appeal: Bain reports a decline in Gen Z’s aspiration to own one.

In Asia, research on younger consumers points to a preference for self-discovery over predefined modes of expression, and a growing association between luxury, comfort and everyday wellbeing. Luxury is becoming less about showing off and more about how one feels.

It is also important to remember that older cohorts continue to buy. Bain forecasts robust market growth over the next decade, driven precisely by the combination of younger generations entering the market and mature generations staying in it. The generational shift is therefore a question of composition and meaning more than replacement.

Table 2. Expected distribution of luxury-consumption growth over the following 12 months, according to executives surveyed (Deloitte, 2026). Percentages represent shares of growth expectations, not growth rates.

Two further strands matter for a generational reading. The first concerns nostalgia as a mechanism of attachment: Holbrook and Schindler (2003) show that preferences formed in youth tend to endure, helping explain the strength of brands associated with personal or family history. The second concerns brand community (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001), in which attachment is not only individual but also runs through a group of people who share the same passion. Oliver (1999), finally, reminds us that behavioural loyalty (buying again) and attitudinal loyalty (feeling connected) do not necessarily coincide.

On the market side, research by EY, Keylens and Inlux on Gen Z found that this generation identifies with brands significantly less, and that luxury’s characteristic emotional attachment is declining. At the same time, Tapestry’s CEO has observed that Gen Z is no less loyal than other generations, but harder to reach because it has many more alternatives. These readings are not contradictory: together, they suggest that the bond exists, but is more conditional, more distributed and easier to withdraw.

**From inherited to negotiated.** For older generations, a relationship with a maison was often built over time through family, a trusted boutique and a relationship with a sales associate. For Gen Z, the bond must be earned and continually renegotiated, and can be withdrawn if the brand fails expectations on price, quality or values. The previously cited finding still matters: around half of Gen Z says its brand preferences were influenced by parents. Inheritance has not disappeared, but it is a starting point to be reaffirmed, not a guarantee.

**From the maison to the product, designer and community.** Attachment tends to fragment. Young people may connect more strongly with a single iconic item, a creative director or a digital community than with the brand as a whole. This makes brands more vulnerable to changes in creative direction, which affected many major maisons between 2024 and 2025. Miu Miu’s success—sales rose 49% in the first half of 2025, helped in part by bag charms priced between $240 and $1,250—shows how a single item can offer a way into a brand’s identity without buying into its entire universe.

**From status to self-congruence.** For generations that experienced luxury as a symbol of success, the bond rests on social signalling. Among younger consumers in mature markets, alignment with personal identity and values matters more, consistent with the concept of self-brand connection. In emerging markets, however, signalling remains powerful among young consumers too.

**From implicit trust to proof.** Traditionally, a brand was assumed to guarantee quality. Today that guarantee must be demonstrated. According to Morning Consult data reported by YPulse, 80% of Gen Z names product quality as a reason for loyalty, followed by customer experience (72%) and transparency (65%); for 58%, material quality—not the name—is the first sign of a luxury brand.

**From exclusive attachment to a portfolio.** Older generations tend to concentrate spending on a few maisons. Younger consumers manage a portfolio of brands that can include luxury, masstige, vintage and sometimes dupes, without seeing this as a contradiction. Loyalty becomes relative to a category or occasion rather than absolute.

Table 3. Summary of generational expectations of luxury brands. Author’s analysis of the cited literature and industry sources. Birth-year ranges are indicative and vary by source.

Two observations complete the picture. The first concerns current spending power: Bank of America data for August 2025 showed year-on-year spending growth of just 0.5% among Gen Z and Millennials, compared with 2.4% among Baby Boomers. Older generations therefore remain decisive for short-term revenue, while younger ones matter for building future relationships. The second concerns convergence: some expectations associated with younger consumers—transparency, demonstrated quality and attention to value—are spreading to older generations too, confirming Bain’s observation that younger generations influence how all generations approach luxury.

Some industry analyses offer even sharper readings, summarising that Gen Z leaves a brand for matters of principle, Millennials over price, Gen X over poor service and Boomers after losing trust. These are useful as working hypotheses, but should be tested with primary data specific to luxury.

Axis 1: motivation for the relationship. It runs from social signalling (the brand communicates status to others, in line with Veblen and the prominent signals described by Han and colleagues) to personal meaning (the brand expresses identity and values, consistent with self-brand connection and inconspicuous consumption).

Axis 2: mode of access. It runs from owning a new item bought in a boutique to circular access through resale, vintage, rental or experiences.

Axis 3: relationship intensity. It runs from brand like—loyal appreciation with little passion—to brand love or strong attachment, which can lead to willingness to pay a premium and word of mouth.

Two contextual variables, essential for targeting, are added to these axes: spending power (from very important client, or VIC, to occasional aspirational buyer) and geographic market (mature or emerging). Crossing the axes with these contextual variables produces the six segments below, each represented by a persona.

Table 4. Proposed segmentation matrix. Author’s analysis.

Measurement should also differ by segment: repurchase rate and lifetime value for A and B; event participation and word of mouth for C; return rate and entry-product purchases for D; community engagement and use of resale programmes for E; market penetration and customer-base growth for F. A further cross-cutting measure is relationship intensity itself, using brand-attachment scales (Park et al., 2010) and brand-love scales (Batra et al., 2012) to distinguish behavioural from emotional loyalty.

When sources of cultural meaning change, brand meaning changes too. For older generations, those sources were relatively few and shared: cinema, television, print and radio. For younger generations they are fragmented, participatory and mediated by algorithms. Attention as a scarce resource, identified by Simon (1971), adds another dimension: in an information-rich environment, what becomes rare and valuable is people’s attention.

Table 5. Analytical framework for the cultural ecosystem by generation. Author’s analysis; tendencies are indicative and vary considerably between countries.

**Why.** Algorithmic discovery has made music less tied to generations and more to personal taste: a twenty-year-old may listen to an eighties song discovered in a video. Fandom, meanwhile, responds to a need for belonging and community, consistent with brand-community theory.

**Implications for luxury.** Music is one of the channels brands use most to reach young consumers. Maisons have appointed numerous K-pop idols as ambassadors, from Gucci with Lee Know of Stray Kids, following Jin of BTS, to Hublot with Jung Kook in 2026. A 2026 research thesis on 149 young Chinese consumers suggests that such collaborations strengthen emotional attachment to the brand and, through it, purchase intention. The risk is saturation: when everyone uses the same strategy, it is hard to stand out, and a famous name alone is not enough to persuade a digitally sophisticated audience.

**Why.** Social content is participatory (people comment on it, recreate it and share it), short, and made by creators who feel closer and more authentic than traditional stars. Series still matter as generators of global imagery, especially when they become cultural phenomena: the success of *Squid Game* helped turn its cast into ambassadors for Louis Vuitton and Gucci.

**Implications for luxury.** Cinema remains important to older generations and as a source of prestige: a campaign film can still debut during the Academy Awards. For younger audiences, however, products must also live as content: series costumes, recognisable looks and fragments that can be reworked on social media. A character’s wardrobe becomes a new point of entry into a brand.

**Why.** In an environment where attention is scarce, content has to earn it by entertaining. For a generation living with economic anxiety and uncertainty, light entertainment also offers escape and relief.

**Implications for luxury.** Here a tension with classical theory emerges. Kapferer and Bastien argue that luxury relies on distance and aura; entertainment, by contrast, requires closeness and familiarity. Brands that behave like entertainment companies gain visibility but risk losing the mystery that justifies their prices. The challenge is to be entertaining without becoming banal, for example through spectacular events, installations or cultural content that surprises without cheapening the brand.

**Why, and the drug metaphor.** Debate about the relationship between smartphones and wellbeing remains open. Haidt (2024) argues that the shift to a smartphone-based childhood contributed to increased anxiety and depression among young people, and describes platforms as designed to capture attention through mechanisms similar to addiction. Other scholars, such as Odgers (2024), dispute that the data demonstrate such a direct causal link. Academic work should therefore use the drug metaphor with care: it is useful for describing design oriented towards continuous engagement, but it is not a clinical finding that applies to every user. It is also worth noting that, according to a 2026 academic study, the smartphone itself is a status symbol for Gen Z.

**Implications for luxury.** Two opposite consequences follow. On the one hand, brand discovery increasingly happens through social media and AI assistants, which are becoming the new shop window. On the other, things screens cannot provide are becoming more valuable: physical presence, silence, time and craftsmanship one can touch. An EY, Keylens and Inlux survey finds that Gen Z, despite researching online, still prefers to buy luxury in physical stores. We might speak of a possible “luxury of disconnection”: time away from screens as a new scarce good.

**Why.** The literature and surveys identify several reasons: greater attention to physical and mental health in a generation reporting higher levels of anxiety and depression; the high cost of alcohol; new forms of socialising, including online, less centred on drinking; and cannabis legalisation in several countries. One further hypothesis deserves testing: in a life constantly documented by smartphones, losing control in public carries a higher social cost.

**Implications for luxury.** The luxury wine and spirits segment is most exposed: Bain reports that the wine market is under pressure in 2026. At the same time, categories related to wellbeing and longevity are growing. McKinsey and BoF observe that even regular luxury consumers are shifting spending towards physical and mental wellbeing. This creates opportunities in hospitality, beauty, sport and self-care experiences, and calls for brands to rethink events and rituals traditionally built around alcohol by offering high-quality non-alcoholic alternatives.

Table 6. Cross-cutting drivers of cultural change and their implications for luxury. Author’s analysis.

Finally, the framework can be linked directly to the personas in section 9 by identifying the cultural touchpoints most relevant to targeting each one.

Table 7. Linking personas to cultural touchpoints. Author’s analysis; hypotheses to be tested through primary research.

**First proposition: disengagement is more economic than cultural, but its cultural component makes it persistent.** Price, combined with pressure on young people’s incomes, was the trigger. However, a loss of trust in value for money and the feeling of having been excluded create an effect that does not automatically disappear when the economy recovers.

**Second proposition: the shift is a migration of value, not its disappearance.** Resale, experiences, beauty and wellbeing are capturing some spending that once went to branded leather goods and apparel. For the sector, this means the perimeter of luxury is expanding, but margins are shifting towards players other than heritage brands, such as resale platforms and hospitality.

**Third proposition: the shift is geographically asymmetric.** In mature markets (Europe, the United States, Japan and, in part, China), discreet consumption and experiences predominate. In emerging markets with young populations (India, Southeast Asia and the Gulf), luxury retains strong signalling value and follows a more conventional growth dynamic. Speaking of one “luxury Gen Z” is therefore an oversimplification.

**Fourth proposition: emotional attachment does not disappear, but changes form.** Younger generations move from inherited, exclusive relationships based on implicit trust to negotiated bonds spread across several brands and based on demonstrated quality and consistency. This makes generation an insufficient segmentation variable and calls for models based on motivation, mode of access and relationship intensity, such as the one proposed in section 9.

**Fifth proposition: the meaning of luxury is increasingly formed outside fashion.** Music, social video, series, sport and new wellbeing habits are now major sources of meaning for brands. For younger generations, these sources are fragmented, participatory and mediated by algorithms. Competitive advantage therefore shifts to brands that can inhabit culture, not merely appear in it.

At a managerial level, these conclusions suggest that strategies based exclusively on price increases and VIC customers have reached a limit, as shown by several maisons’ decision to pause or contain increases in 2026. Credible entry points, integrating resale into the product life cycle, telling heritage as a language shared across generations and differentiating strategies by market become more important.

Five directions for future research are proposed: (1) longitudinal studies following the same cohorts over time to separate generational effects from age and income; (2) comparative research on Gen Z in mature and emerging markets, particularly Italy, China and India; (3) analysis of resale as a space where taste is formed and consumers first encounter brands; (4) studies of the relationship between device use, wellbeing and luxury consumption that account for the still-open debate about smartphone effects; (5) quantitative validation of the proposed segmentation model and personas through surveys measuring brand attachment and brand love across cohorts; and (6) research into the role of artificial intelligence in how younger consumers discover and evaluate luxury products.

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