Luxury isn’t real.

Luxury Isn’t Real

Not like it says it is.

Luxury feels real because we were trained to feel it. Slowly…Carefully. With ads. Lots of ads. Someone showed us a bag and said, “This costs more than your rent,” and instead of laughing, we nodded like, “Yeah. That makes sense.” It didn’t make sense. But we agreed anyway. Luxury is like a story people keep telling, but no one wants to be the idiot who says, “Wait, why?” You don’t ask why a shirt costs $900. You just learn how to say the brand name without choking on it. You act calm. Your heart is pounding. You are pretending it’s normal. It is not normal. You’re standing in a mall paying college tuition money for pants.

Luxury doesn’t argue with you. It just stares until you feel rude.

Once something is called “obviously valuable,” nobody checks the math. The price becomes the proof. The quiet store becomes a church. Everyone whispers like the object might hear them and get offended. That’s on purpose. A guy named Thorstein Veblen noticed it in 1899. He said rich people buy stuff to show they can waste money. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Luxury was never about being useful. It was about being extra on purpose. Like a peacock tail. Like a mansion with a room no one is allowed in. The waste is the point. Now luxury pretends it’s about “craft” and “heritage.” Which is funny, because half the stuff is made in the same factories as regular stuff. Sometimes literally on the same line. One shirt goes left. One shirt goes right. One is $40. One is $800. The difference is the story. That’s it. That’s the magic trick. Congrats, you’re broke.

Luxury also isn’t something you’re born knowing. You have to learn it. Which fork. Which color. Which tiny logo means “I belong.” Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said taste is basically a secret code. Luxury items are passwords. If you recognize them, you’re in. If you don’t, the system goes, “Good. Working perfectly.”

Luxury needs you to feel a little bad to survive.

Not terrible. Just… almost good enough. Like, “You’re close. So close. Just one purchase away from being a real person.” Scientists have shown that when people think something is expensive, their brain decides it’s better. Wine tastes fancier. Fabric feels softer. Your brain is lying to you to protect the money you just spent. It’s like, “No no no, we love this now. We have to.” Luxury also pretends to be rare while simultaneously being everywhere. “Limited edition.” There are 40,000 of them. Relax. Scarcity is part of the act. Take away the logo. Put the object in a normal room. Suddenly it’s just… fine. That’s why luxury hates knockoffs. Not because they’re bad, but because they ruin the spell. It’s like seeing the wires in a magic show. Everyone gets mad. Luxury also hijacks your caveman brain. Deep down, your brain still thinks, “Big shiny thing means safety. Big shiny thing means mate.” That made sense 100,000 years ago. Now it just makes you buy a watch that could survive a war you are absolutely not in. Luxury says it lasts forever. “Timeless.” But it lives off you feeling outdated. Last year’s bag isn’t broken. It’s embarrassing. Somehow. Quietly. You feel it in your bones. That’s not an accident. That’s the business model.

Now luxury even sells experiences.

Luxury travel is like, “See the world, but nothing bad happens.” Real culture, but no bugs. Adventure, but with a schedule and snacks. Everything is “authentic,” but also has Wi-Fi. Luxury can’t handle discomfort. It wants wonder without inconvenience. It wants growth without growth pains. It wants the selfie, not the story. Lately, luxury calls itself self-care. “You deserve this.” Which is wild, because now if you don’t buy it, it’s like you hate yourself? That’s a wild move. Inequality in a bathrobe.

Here’s the thing: luxury isn’t real because it only works if someone else is excluded. Take away inequality, and luxury disappears. Take away the audience, and it stops performing. What’s left is just stuff. Comfortable stuff. Well-made stuff. Fun stuff. All fine. None of it needed a moral ranking system taped to it. Pleasure is real. Comfort is real. Craft is real. What’s fake is the idea that these things say something about your worth. Luxury promises meaning without thinking and identity without effort. It’s a shortcut to feeling important. But shortcuts just loop. And they’re expensive. When you step off, nothing explodes. You still eat. You still sleep. The couch still works. The silence is weird at first. Then it’s kind of great.

Because you realize you weren’t missing luxury. You were just missing permission to stop pretending it mattered.