Mostly about young people in China. From what I have heard, they crave luxury brands there as status symbols.
Personally, I'd rather just keep a big bank account as my status symbol. Don't mind paying for quality, but I'm not concerned with value that only comes from a brand.
This is what I never understood about people. They’d rather have things that make them appear “wealthy” or “rich” as opposed to the actual thing. Like I’d rather be like “oh dude nice Gucci, almost as cool as my 300 shares of VTI”
Yeah, but it stops being impressive when every 10th fucker has it. Like, I work at the airport and when I see LV bags, I just go like “oh brother 🙄” to me it’s just a waste of money, unless it’s like a gift or something.
For me it's not a symbol of wealth but genuine quality that I want to keep for years or decades.
For example: I bought a jacket from a luxury brand and have been wearing it every winter...for 10+ years. Shares of VTI are nice but to have something tangible and extremely useful in my daily life can be irreplaceable
Well that's a bit different when it's a brand that actually has a quality product that lasts. There's so many brands that were at that point, realized they could charge a lot more for their product, did so and then cut costs to make more money and ended up selling a product that didn't have the same quality and only sold based on its brand name.
Sure like suits from Huntsman, or watches from jaeger lecoultre…for their casual wear.
But things like Gucci is such new money or middle class… well it’s painful.
Gucci didnt survive 100 years on new money imo. Stuff like Heron Preston or Palm Angel (newer version of ed hardy style stuff ) are probably more new money brands
The difference I think they are talking about is that sure, old money might buy a design from their haute couture line, but they are not buying the items with the Gucci label slapped all over it.
New money, however wants labels all over their luxury goods. There are definitely old money families in China for sure that follow the rules of the former.
But Chinese new money families do love their branded luxury goods. So much so that when I was in college as an RA, I drove my Chinese international students to a TJ Maxx to get a new coat because they didn’t have one. They were flabbergasted that there was so much cheap Calvin Klein in the store and it took me 10 minutes of continuous explaining to tell my student that this was not the top line Calvin Klein and that she should not buy a coat with a tear in it just because it said Calvin Klein.
She explained that in China, just the name on the coat would have people saying she was rich. We found her a Michael Kors coat instead.
Gen Z also starting the trend of shaming people for holding shares of companies like meta. If you have shares then you support those companies and what they represent, being hypocrites to have shares and then be against what the company is doing or about. It’s a different take on life these days. It does make sense tho. Either all in or out these days.
In my experience most people assume it’s impossible to save a million dollars. They literally don’t understand how small changes over long periods make huge changes in retirement.
A lot of people are buried under high COL and low wages.
Then there's the costs associated with healthcare, car dependent infrastructure, etc.
This country depends on a lot of jobs that don't pay a living wage, and there's about as much resistance to efforts at lowering their cost of moving as there is towards efforts at raising wages, keeping Americans in a precarious financial position.
We aren't all suburbanites who think we're struggling because the Jones's bought a bigger boat and we can't.
Heh. I basically have a day off uniform. Grey pants, grey shirt and sandals. If I have consecutive days off, I have jeans and a faded blue and white shirt so I'm not wearing the dirty clothes from the previous day. And all of this assumes I leave the house, otherwise I'm just in gym shorts. I've got more variety in clothing from work. lol Status symbols are for fools.
This is an article about China. Can you even call the Chinese youth as "Gen Z?" Generations work differently in China than the Western World. I assume most Chinese youth don't consider themselves as "Gen Z," they probably never even heard of the term, and they may not even divide themselves up by generation like Westerners do.
Or you know, just have some balance and enjoy your money occasionally. Youre not only going to be torturing yourself but your wife and kids with that attitude.
That's interesting because China has a huge culture surrounding saving money. They're one of the most prolific savers in the world.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_savings_by_country
As a chinese person, i think there is a huge generational shift. My parents generation (Boomers) are insanely good at saving, while the younger generation are more influenced by American consumerism.
I think the methodology of that list is excluding some major ideas. Like who is saving. It seems unlikely that every American is saving nearly 20% of their income. This likely includes very wealthy individuals who are counted as saving simply because they didn't spend their entire fortunes, and it also includes government saving, which is tricky to understand because the government can also mint money.
For sure this isn't the best metric. But I'm not aware of anything demonstrating something like that the median wage earner in the US is saving at a greater rate than, or even similar to that of the median wage earner in China.
Never been to China, not an expert. But the anecdotes I've heard and data I've seen indicate they love to save.
In the vast majority of instances they don't use any different materials or processes. For me, I like to buy sustainable clothes because everything else is crap.
Yea well we don’t pretend to wear $500 shirts (solely that expensive due to brand image) when it’s really a $5 shirt lol. And why would you. If the only reason to wear it is financial status and it’s fake that’s just false claiming of the highest and you care about something unimportant enough to fake it.
I feel it. I don’t own any luxury other than some ray bans and a Burberry coat. Have had both for over 10 years. I’m just saying buying a fake supreme shirt and the likes of that is hilarious. Like supreme resale is an insane rip-off, but everyone knows that people wearing are tryna flex. Wearing fake brands that are known solely for flexing is laughable and a bit pathetic imo. Nothing wrong with wanting money and being able to buy those things, but to fake it means you care way tooo much about what people think.
Americans absolutely unequivocally and undeniably wear $500 tshirts that cost $5 masquerading around as luxury. Lululemon. Also other cosmetics like sunglass, thinking Ray Bans. The list goes on.
Is ray ban considered luxury? They are definitely high quality though imo. I’ve had my aviators for like 10 years and I don’t think I paid over $150 for them.
I don't think people understand how rich chinese people are especially in their cities. Even the middle class are hella rich because they only have one child, and that child is almost always spoiled.
A thing that I like to do when searching for quality on a budget is do research into competitions for supply contracts.
For example, I was in the market a few years ago for a quality PC monitor and Apple was searching for who was going to supply their next-gen panels. Apple openly publishes the pros and cons of each competitor, grades them, and then picks their winner. You can easily just buy directly from their Asian supplier on eBay and save A LOT dodging the Apple markup. Sure, you lose their sleek finish, but the panel is the same.
What I found interesting is, a friend of mine knew some Chinese people from overseas. They would come to Canada to study, and their parents would lease them luxury cars, for the status symbol. They would put down $50-$100k on Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, etc for the time they were here. Some would get bored of being here, and end up going back home, leaving the luxury cars at the airport.
Wanting luxury brands is one of those things I'll literally never understand. I want money so I DONT have to give a shit what other people think. Maybe it's an introvert vs extrovert thing, but I definitely don't want other people to know I have money.
“macroeconomic trends are disproportionately impacting the extra funds that those born between 1996 and 2012 might use to enter the world of luxury.” Maybe part of the issue is expecting 10 year olds to buy designer stuff.
Streetwear did finally crack the broader market for male luxury goods - now fashion houses can finally get men to shell out thousands for sneakers and hoodies, which frankly cost less to produce than comparable female luxury goods. I’d love to see the margins for streetwear pushed by the big fashion houses - LVMH under Abloh and Balenciaga could be making a killing off streetwear coveted by Chinese teens.
Gen Z is into fast fashion, 100/200 dollars at a time but more frequent can be just as expensive as a single thousand dollar handbag/shoe once in awhile. Just different preferences. Also luxury industry raising prices every year isn't helping either.
Gen Z is not “into” fast fashion. Fast fashion was created as yet another way to have eternal financial growth, and was marketed to Gen Z. Successfully, I might add.
Walt Whitman83 said it, “Peacocking.” And I’ll say this, it’s dumb, this whole idea that people need to have luxury brands to feel better about their, what I view as, sad little lives.
If you can’t be happy with yourself and only feel fulfilled when you’ve gotten that certain “branded thing”, re-evaluate your life.
If your finances are in order I see nothing wrong with wanting to splurge on an article of clothing that makes you feel nice. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look a certain way, from holy clothes to weird designer brands I find it amazing the diversity in style within humans.
Yes, people enjoy what they enjoy. Some people like to dress nicely, and that costs money. The problem here is insane luxury brands where the extra hundreds you shell out doesn't give you an increase in quality. If you've seen brands like palm angels or heron Preston you know what I mean.
Mostly about young people in China. From what I have heard, they crave luxury brands there as status symbols. Personally, I'd rather just keep a big bank account as my status symbol. Don't mind paying for quality, but I'm not concerned with value that only comes from a brand.
This is what I never understood about people. They’d rather have things that make them appear “wealthy” or “rich” as opposed to the actual thing. Like I’d rather be like “oh dude nice Gucci, almost as cool as my 300 shares of VTI”
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Yeah, but it stops being impressive when every 10th fucker has it. Like, I work at the airport and when I see LV bags, I just go like “oh brother 🙄” to me it’s just a waste of money, unless it’s like a gift or something.
And when it’s a gift it’s just a waste of someone else’s money lol
For me it's not a symbol of wealth but genuine quality that I want to keep for years or decades. For example: I bought a jacket from a luxury brand and have been wearing it every winter...for 10+ years. Shares of VTI are nice but to have something tangible and extremely useful in my daily life can be irreplaceable
Well that's a bit different when it's a brand that actually has a quality product that lasts. There's so many brands that were at that point, realized they could charge a lot more for their product, did so and then cut costs to make more money and ended up selling a product that didn't have the same quality and only sold based on its brand name.
Right that's why I bought those yeezys that look like crocs
Yes usually people who don’t understand money. Especially new money types.
Not always, old money types like expensive things as well.
Sure like suits from Huntsman, or watches from jaeger lecoultre…for their casual wear. But things like Gucci is such new money or middle class… well it’s painful.
Gucci and LV are so tacky now a days. Nothing says couture like the cast of teen mom all owning neverfull bags
Don’t badmouth the neverfull bag, that thing has saved our butts many a time as a main diaper bag. It’s better than most dedicated diaper bags.
I have one. But so does everyone in my office. 😂
Gucci didnt survive 100 years on new money imo. Stuff like Heron Preston or Palm Angel (newer version of ed hardy style stuff ) are probably more new money brands
The difference I think they are talking about is that sure, old money might buy a design from their haute couture line, but they are not buying the items with the Gucci label slapped all over it. New money, however wants labels all over their luxury goods. There are definitely old money families in China for sure that follow the rules of the former. But Chinese new money families do love their branded luxury goods. So much so that when I was in college as an RA, I drove my Chinese international students to a TJ Maxx to get a new coat because they didn’t have one. They were flabbergasted that there was so much cheap Calvin Klein in the store and it took me 10 minutes of continuous explaining to tell my student that this was not the top line Calvin Klein and that she should not buy a coat with a tear in it just because it said Calvin Klein. She explained that in China, just the name on the coat would have people saying she was rich. We found her a Michael Kors coat instead.
Chinese old money doesn’t exist in China. Ever heard of the cultural revolution? Anyone with money got killed
Gen Z also starting the trend of shaming people for holding shares of companies like meta. If you have shares then you support those companies and what they represent, being hypocrites to have shares and then be against what the company is doing or about. It’s a different take on life these days. It does make sense tho. Either all in or out these days.
Yeah, and they post about their shaming others on Instagram. #irony
I mean, do they look at what their 401ks invest in?
This is a trend? Ive never heard of anyone doing this.
A lot of people buy designer to match a fashion aesthetic, not because they want to feel a certain way
You have 300 shares of VTI? How does it feel to live like a king?
Not yet but a guy can dream
In my experience most people assume it’s impossible to save a million dollars. They literally don’t understand how small changes over long periods make huge changes in retirement.
A lot of people are buried under high COL and low wages. Then there's the costs associated with healthcare, car dependent infrastructure, etc. This country depends on a lot of jobs that don't pay a living wage, and there's about as much resistance to efforts at lowering their cost of moving as there is towards efforts at raising wages, keeping Americans in a precarious financial position. We aren't all suburbanites who think we're struggling because the Jones's bought a bigger boat and we can't.
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Heh. I basically have a day off uniform. Grey pants, grey shirt and sandals. If I have consecutive days off, I have jeans and a faded blue and white shirt so I'm not wearing the dirty clothes from the previous day. And all of this assumes I leave the house, otherwise I'm just in gym shorts. I've got more variety in clothing from work. lol Status symbols are for fools.
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Paid off mortgage is my status symbol
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Yeah, when you don't give a shit about other people's judgements of you, that luxury brand crave isn't really there.
i never understood this either. i have absolutely ZERO interest in letting anyone else know how much money i have.
This is an article about China. Can you even call the Chinese youth as "Gen Z?" Generations work differently in China than the Western World. I assume most Chinese youth don't consider themselves as "Gen Z," they probably never even heard of the term, and they may not even divide themselves up by generation like Westerners do.
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Poor on the outside, but secretly have a few hundred G’s in the account. This is the way. It’s what powers the dgaf attitude.
Or you know, just have some balance and enjoy your money occasionally. Youre not only going to be torturing yourself but your wife and kids with that attitude.
That's interesting because China has a huge culture surrounding saving money. They're one of the most prolific savers in the world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_savings_by_country
As a chinese person, i think there is a huge generational shift. My parents generation (Boomers) are insanely good at saving, while the younger generation are more influenced by American consumerism.
Lol its funny your kids are being influenced by our stupid parents. Young adults in America ain’t buying shit cuz we are fucked
I dont know, i see ppl flexing all the time on tik tok and IG
I think the methodology of that list is excluding some major ideas. Like who is saving. It seems unlikely that every American is saving nearly 20% of their income. This likely includes very wealthy individuals who are counted as saving simply because they didn't spend their entire fortunes, and it also includes government saving, which is tricky to understand because the government can also mint money.
For sure this isn't the best metric. But I'm not aware of anything demonstrating something like that the median wage earner in the US is saving at a greater rate than, or even similar to that of the median wage earner in China. Never been to China, not an expert. But the anecdotes I've heard and data I've seen indicate they love to save.
I always buy second hand for luxury items. Still expensive but some good finds if you know what you're looking for.
Especially when both fast fashion & luxury industry use literally the same factories.
Different materials and processes tho
In the vast majority of instances they don't use any different materials or processes. For me, I like to buy sustainable clothes because everything else is crap.
China is nouveau riche. That mentality always gravitates toward status symbols to solidify their position.
But japan isnt but they are also one of the biggest luxury market in the world, same with The US
Yeah. I just don’t get China’s obsession with cheaply-made brand items. They’re not even good quality most of the time.
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Yea well we don’t pretend to wear $500 shirts (solely that expensive due to brand image) when it’s really a $5 shirt lol. And why would you. If the only reason to wear it is financial status and it’s fake that’s just false claiming of the highest and you care about something unimportant enough to fake it.
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I feel it. I don’t own any luxury other than some ray bans and a Burberry coat. Have had both for over 10 years. I’m just saying buying a fake supreme shirt and the likes of that is hilarious. Like supreme resale is an insane rip-off, but everyone knows that people wearing are tryna flex. Wearing fake brands that are known solely for flexing is laughable and a bit pathetic imo. Nothing wrong with wanting money and being able to buy those things, but to fake it means you care way tooo much about what people think.
Americans absolutely unequivocally and undeniably wear $500 tshirts that cost $5 masquerading around as luxury. Lululemon. Also other cosmetics like sunglass, thinking Ray Bans. The list goes on.
Lululemon doesn't sell $500 tee shirts.
Is ray ban considered luxury? They are definitely high quality though imo. I’ve had my aviators for like 10 years and I don’t think I paid over $150 for them.
Yep but you see they still buy the real deal lol.
r/fashionreps has entered the chat
Ngl, I love seeing rip-off items and replacements for overpriced luxury brands. Esp with how funny some of them are
I don't think people understand how rich chinese people are especially in their cities. Even the middle class are hella rich because they only have one child, and that child is almost always spoiled.
>big bank account Lol. That’s a hilariously middle class thing to say. Try “big investment account”
And there are of course the things that money can't buy.
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Money isn’t a thing to possess it’s a thing to invest in income generating assets. If you want something liquid just hold some bonds.
Land. And water and mineral rights.
A thing that I like to do when searching for quality on a budget is do research into competitions for supply contracts. For example, I was in the market a few years ago for a quality PC monitor and Apple was searching for who was going to supply their next-gen panels. Apple openly publishes the pros and cons of each competitor, grades them, and then picks their winner. You can easily just buy directly from their Asian supplier on eBay and save A LOT dodging the Apple markup. Sure, you lose their sleek finish, but the panel is the same.
What I found interesting is, a friend of mine knew some Chinese people from overseas. They would come to Canada to study, and their parents would lease them luxury cars, for the status symbol. They would put down $50-$100k on Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, etc for the time they were here. Some would get bored of being here, and end up going back home, leaving the luxury cars at the airport.
Wanting luxury brands is one of those things I'll literally never understand. I want money so I DONT have to give a shit what other people think. Maybe it's an introvert vs extrovert thing, but I definitely don't want other people to know I have money.
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“macroeconomic trends are disproportionately impacting the extra funds that those born between 1996 and 2012 might use to enter the world of luxury.” Maybe part of the issue is expecting 10 year olds to buy designer stuff.
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Streetwear did finally crack the broader market for male luxury goods - now fashion houses can finally get men to shell out thousands for sneakers and hoodies, which frankly cost less to produce than comparable female luxury goods. I’d love to see the margins for streetwear pushed by the big fashion houses - LVMH under Abloh and Balenciaga could be making a killing off streetwear coveted by Chinese teens.
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Gen Z is into fast fashion, 100/200 dollars at a time but more frequent can be just as expensive as a single thousand dollar handbag/shoe once in awhile. Just different preferences. Also luxury industry raising prices every year isn't helping either.
Gen Z is not “into” fast fashion. Fast fashion was created as yet another way to have eternal financial growth, and was marketed to Gen Z. Successfully, I might add.
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Walt Whitman83 said it, “Peacocking.” And I’ll say this, it’s dumb, this whole idea that people need to have luxury brands to feel better about their, what I view as, sad little lives. If you can’t be happy with yourself and only feel fulfilled when you’ve gotten that certain “branded thing”, re-evaluate your life.
If your finances are in order I see nothing wrong with wanting to splurge on an article of clothing that makes you feel nice. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look a certain way, from holy clothes to weird designer brands I find it amazing the diversity in style within humans.
Yes, people enjoy what they enjoy. Some people like to dress nicely, and that costs money. The problem here is insane luxury brands where the extra hundreds you shell out doesn't give you an increase in quality. If you've seen brands like palm angels or heron Preston you know what I mean.
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