And similar to that, stealth wealth, the aesthetic made viral by “Succession,” with its poisonous billionaires of their Loro Piana baseball caps and Tom Ford hoodies locked in a C-suite cage match to the dying, has been swept off display screen.
Instead: logomania, branding that may be seen from entire metropolis blocks away and equipment that jangle and gleam with the blinding mild of bragging rights.
The outfits, that’s to say, of Carrie and Co. in Season 2 of “And Just Like That …,” the “Sex and the City” reboot come just lately to Max — the streamer that, because it occurs, additionally gave us the Roys of their greige cashmere. Each exhibits are set in New York Metropolis, the house of strivers and entrepreneurs, of “Washington Square” and Wharton, of continually evolving social castes extremely, and actually, invested in their very own identifiable camouflage.
If watching “Succession” was partly like participating in a detective recreation to suss out what character was carrying what model, so insider had been the style politics, watching “And Just Like That …” is like attending brandapalooza: the double Cs and Fs and Gs virtually whacking you on the top with their presence. (Warning: Spoilers are coming.) All of the over-the-top fashionista-ing is again. The room-size closets!
It’s the yin to the “Succession” yang: a veritable celebration of the comforting aspirational desires of self-realization (or self-escapism) embedded in stuff that will truly be probably the most putting a part of an more and more stale sequence. Actually, the garments, which frequently function their very own plot factors, are extra memorable than any dialogue.
Effectively … besides perhaps for that immediately basic line in Episode 1, uttered by Lisa Todd Wexley (Nicole Ari Parker) on her technique to the Met Gala in reference to her robe and feather hat: “It’s not crazy — it’s Valentino.” However that’s the exception that proves the rule.
There may be Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), along with her a number of Manolos and Fendis, self-medicating with purchasing, returning dwelling in the future with six Bergdorf Goodman luggage. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) toting her Burberry doggy poop bag (additionally possessed of a Burberry apron and Burberry ear muffs) and bemoaning the truth that her teenage daughter hocked her Chanel gown to fund her musical aspirations.
Lisa Todd Wexley dropping her youngsters off for camp in a shiny inexperienced Louis Vuitton jacket and scarf. And Seema (Sarita Choudhury), the character that passes for a restrained dresser because of her penchant for neutrals (and the occasional animal print), loudly lamenting the theft of her caramel-colored Hermès Birkin — considered one of her totems of self, ripped straight from her fingers.
There may be Loewe and Pierre Cardin; Altuzarra and Dries Van Noten. There may be additionally an effort to repurpose garments, like Carrie’s wedding ceremony gown, in an effort to promote the virtues of rewearing, but it surely’s just about misplaced in all the remainder of the muchness. There’s a devoted Instagram account on which the costume designers Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago share their finds, with 277,000 followers. @Successionfashion, in contrast, has 184,000.
All of which suggests what, precisely? Is the period of quiet luxurious, so just lately embraced by TikTok, already at an finish? Have our consideration spans, so famously abbreviated, moved on? Has the physics of style exerted its pressure and produced an equal and reverse response to an earlier motion?
As if. In some ways, the style in “And Just Like That …” appears to protest an excessive amount of. Partially that’s as a result of it looks as if a regurgitation of the enjoyable that got here earlier than, which was itself a response to the minimalism of the early Nineties, which itself was born in that decade’s recession.
The actual fact is, irrespective of how a lot lip service has been paid to quiet luxurious or stealth wealth or no matter you wish to name it, and the way it’s 2023’s “hottest new fashion trend,” it was by no means a latest invention. It has been round since approach again when it was known as “shabby chic” or “connoisseurship” or “old money,” all synonyms for the sort of product that didn’t look overtly costly however was an indication of aesthetic family tree — the distinction between new cash and inherited cash that style co-opted and regurgitated to its personal ends. Simply as extra clearly coded consumption has been round since Louis Vuitton plunked his initials on some leather-based again in 1896 or since Jay Gatsby began tossing his shirts.
We’ve been declaring the “end of logos” and, alternately, the “rise of stealth wealth” for many years now. There are cycles when one is extra ubiquitous than the opposite (often having to do with financial downturns when flaunting disposable earnings isn’t an excellent look), however they exist in tandem. They assist outline one another.
Contemplate that through the present financial uncertainty, precisely the sort of atmosphere that tends to fast-forward the attraction of low-key high-cost gadgets, probably the most profitable international manufacturers have remained probably the most extremely identifiable: Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Hermès. Or that in his latest debut for Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams launched a bag referred to as Millionaire that prices — yup — $1 million. (It’s a yellow croc Speedy with gold and diamond {hardware}.)
What’s extra fascinating is, as Carrie and the gang proceed on their merry wardrobed approach, how clichéd each types now appear, how performative. As soon as they’ve trickled as much as tv, it’s unattainable to not acknowledge the costume. Or the truth that whichever look you purchase into, they’re merely alternative ways of expressing wealth, in all its ornamental strata. And wealth itself by no means goes out of style.
