The story is meant to signal that de Meo - a former auto industry exec - is serious, rigorous, a different kind of leader than Kering has had before.

I believe that he is. And that’s part of what worries me.

To be very fair, De Meo inherited a genuine mess.

Between 2022 and 2025, Kering’s operating margin fell from 27% to 11% as its two main growth engines - Gucci and China - stalled simultaneously. In Q1 2026, revenues dropped another 6%. Gucci alone is down over 8% year-over-year. The plan he unveiled last month in Florence, called ReconKering, involves closing at least 250 stores over four years, cutting inventory by a billion euros.

It could seem by the operational tone of de Meo’s plan, that he is missing a causal detail. But here’s what’s easy to miss in the headlines: he actually has correctly identified the problem.

At Capital Markets Day, he said it plainly: “Gucci remains in the top five in desirability worldwide, down from number one a few years ago. That is the place we want to reclaim.”

He brought Demna in to lead creative direction. He held the event in Florence - Gucci’s home city, not Paris, not a boardroom. He said, with obvious affection: “Gucci is not vanilla ice cream. It’s spicy, sometimes bitter, sometimes super sweet, and that is what makes it totally unique.”

He gets it. He knows that the root cause of Gucci’s recent and ongoing underperformance is not supply chain.

That’s what makes what comes next so frustrating.

Because there’s a difference between understanding a desirability problem and knowing how to solve one. And I think that gap - between diagnosis and cure - is where Kering’s recovery plan is most exposed.

The argument de Meo is making is fairly simple: if Gucci becomes more disciplined as a business, desirability will return. Fewer products. Tighter distribution. Less discounting. More control. Clean up the brand, and the magic comes back.

What the plan really amounts to - and this is to be expected based on his background - is the auto industry’s theory of quality applied to fashion. Fix the inputs, fix the outputs.

But that’s the thing about luxury.

In this fragile, finicky, beautiful, powerful sector, desirability doesn’t work that way. Success is not always an output of pure operational discipline. In luxury, desirability grows from something far more emotional - a quality of conviction, a point of view so clear that people want to live inside it.

When Gucci was at its peak under Alessandro Michele, you could argue about whether you liked the aesthetic, but you could not argue it lacked commitment. Those velvet suits, the maximalist layering, the unbothered camp of it - a worldview so strong it basically argued with YOU.

Just like in all great luxury transactions, people weren’t buying Gucci. They were buying into a way of seeing.

That’s what was lost. And that loss doesn’t show up cleanly in a spreadsheet until several quarters later, when it’s already too late.

The most interesting detail in de Meo’s ReconKering presentation, to me, wasn’t about Gucci at all. Near the end, he introduced something called “House of Wonders” - a small-bets vehicle (think of an incubator) for emerging brands adjacent to Kering’s core business, launched alongside a minority investment in Chinese brand Icicle.

He described it as “an escape valve” and “a way to bring oxygen into the organization.” If you’re lucky, he added, “you might find a unicorn.”

What struck me wasn’t the initiative itself, but the language around it. Escape valve. Oxygen. The existence of a project like this almost contradicts the broader logic of ReconKering. If operational discipline alone were enough to restore vitality, why would the company need an escape valve at all? Why would it need oxygen?

The language suggests that de Meo understands something important: large corporate systems, left entirely to their own logic, eventually calcify. Especially in luxury, where desirability depends on creative risk, cultural intuition, and emotional tension.

I don’t think Luca de Meo is naive at all about this contradiction. If anything, I think he’s unusually aware of it. But he’s also trapped inside the fundamental bind I’ve written about here before - the crippling irony of trying to maintain brand equity while running a publicly traded luxury conglomerate.

The market rewards measurable progress on a quarterly timeline, while real desirability operates on a different clock. You can accelerate distribution, but you can’t force cultural relevance to arrive on schedule.

There’s one more detail worth sitting with. On the day of the Gucci Primavera show, 77 products from the runway were immediately available to buy - online and in select boutiques. De Meo called this “see-now-buy-now” and framed it as an industrial innovation. And in an operational sense, maybe so. But the move also demonstrates the tension at the heart of this whole plan.

Part of what has historically made fashion feel like art rather than just merchandise is distance - the gap between seeing something on a runway and being able to own it. That gap is critical because it creates longing, and longing is the engine of desire. The want needs somewhere to live before it gets satisfied. Collapsing that distance is efficient, and may even “work” in a balance sheet sense. But trading the magic for the margin is still a trade.

This is the pattern: when operational logic and creative logic pull in opposite directions, operational logic tends to win in publicly traded companies. Simply because operational logic is measurable and creative logic is not. Those of us who care about both revenue and brand integrity really struggle with this one - which is why I started this Substack to begin with.

So what would actually work?

Probably something slower and harder to present at a Capital Markets Day. A true revival of Gucci’s brand equity would require giving Demna genuine time and space - not a quarter, not a year - to build something with its own internal logic. Resisting the pressure to show results before the work is done. Treating Gucci not as a brand to be “fixed”, but as a relic, or a new era yet to be discovered.

De Meo is giving the market a story. A serious one - clear-eyed, ambitious, more sophisticated than it gets credit for. I’m just not sure the timeline matches the problem.

The most luxurious thing Kering could do right now is slow down. Stop asking what Gucci should sell and start asking what Gucci actually believes in 2026 and beyond - about beauty, about dressing, about the kind of person it wants to speak to. Supply chain problem, this is not. Distribution problem, this is not.

A question of conviction, that’s what this is. And conviction, as anyone who has ever tried to manufacture it knows, does not respond to operational pressure.

Conviction requires something special to believe in. And Gucci is SO special. But it’s ready for its next chapter, and that takes time.

This was no impulse buy. In fact, I could not wait to get my hands on this elegant little object that I had seen in an Instagram ad.

I’m not really a lipstick person (I like a stain + gloss combo), but I am a tactile person. I am a ritual person. And most importantly, I am a HUGE proponent of protecting the position of beauty — and presence — in an increasingly practical world. That’s actually the whole reason that I love the luxury space, but we’ll save that story for another time.

As a child, I used to resist the label that adults wanted to give me: “she’s an old soul.”

Old? Rude.

But I have to admit that my affinity for opulence in something as mundane as a lipstick case might reveal some truth in their assessment.

For much of history, everyday items were not easily replaceable the way they are now. The idea that you might actually keep something around for a longer period of time warranted a greater consideration — and investment — in its quality and aesthetic.

I don’t need to tell you how disposable many things have become. Even the iPhone is rumored to stop working after a fixed amount of time, encouraging an upgrade.

But I digress.

This lipstick case, to me, felt like a deliberate pushback against everything consumerism has become.

And I loved it.

Back to our story.

As I walked into Le Bon Marché after my routine first-day-in-Paris lunch at Café de Flore, I felt like a middle schooler buying makeup for the first time. There was a giddiness, an excitement to acquire this gorgeous piece that I just knew was going to make me feel chic and wonderful.

Upon choosing my color, I discovered something even more charming about the product — the pigments were replaceable.

The case, built to last, remains. And once your color runs out, you can choose another. Or simply refill.

With my newfound knowledge that I didn’t have to commit forever to one color, I took a chance and went for something a bit unexpected: a deep raspberry pink.

I don’t know how else to say this but — this lipstick was the boost I needed at the time.

The weight of the case. The slightly regal nature of the color I chose. It all made me stand a little taller, which, at the time, was important.

I wore the color quite a bit for a season. Then summer came around, and I forgot about it.

Two years later, almost to the weekend — spring of 2026 — I returned to Paris, as I do every year. And with me this time came the lipstick case, ready for a new pigment, and a new adventure.

A lot had changed since the spring of 2024.

As I walked through the doors of Le Bon Marché, I found myself reflecting on the grief, the rebirth, the accomplishments, the love, the evolution that has taken place since the day I made the original purchase.

I felt gratitude.

And I felt a funny sort of comfort in this small object that had been there on the sidelines as I was becoming.

Honestly, when it came time to choose my new color, I didn’t feel pulled toward any of the hues on display.

So I went with a clear balm.

Though it feels a little silly to house what is essentially chapstick inside such an ornate piece, the case itself still sparks so much joy.

The pink and blue ornament that used to live inside my makeup bag, reserved for special occasions, now floats between my purses and work bags. The subtlety of the clear balm makes it the perfect companion for the gym, a flight, or a hydrating midday touch up.

It’s taken on a new life, just like me.

I think what I love most about the case is the intention behind it.

The decision to make something small feel significant. To invest in its weight, its form, the quiet satisfaction of the click. To take a daily habit and give it just enough care that it begins to feel like ritual.

There’s a presence that comes with holding something like that. You notice it. You’re in it, if only for a second.

I sense this is something we’ve all been craving more of lately.

A slower kind of consumption. More intention in what we choose, and how we keep it. Less pressure to move on to the next thing, and more of a willingness to stay with what’s already here.

I can’t fully explain why it feels so good. But it does.

And this is something luxury can offer, when it’s done well.

A pause.

Or maybe more than that: a piece that can meet you where you are, and weave itself into the fabric of your life — evolving alongside you.

To care too much, in many groups, was unsophisticated.
To believe too fully was naive.
To commit to anything too deeply felt… excessive. Cringe, even.

As someone who didn’t grow up in a predominantly religious household (more spiritual), this posture should have been comforting.

But at my core, I was always drawn toward the gravitas of religion.

The reverence it holds.

I am someone who is easily and naturally moved by art, music, film, fashion.
(If you’ve read my musings on couture, you understand this.)

But I’ll admit, I have downplayed that part of myself in the past.

Because being truly, deeply invested in something was, for a long time, just sort of uncool.

A certain distance signaled intelligence. Control. Taste.

And over time, that distance didn’t just shape how we expressed ourselves.

It became an unspoken cultural standard.

One that extended into the spaces and experiences we created.

Including design, fashion, media, hospitality and quietly, the luxury landscape too.

But now, that posture feels outdated.

There has been a subtle but noticeable shift.

The tell? Young people are going back to church.

And not just modern churches. At least here in NYC, Gen Z is showing up in older, more traditional congregations.

This isn’t religion-specific. It’s happening across the board.

They are not attending out of obligation.

And not always out of belief.

It feels more like a desire to experience something that detachment could never provide.

Not long ago, being openly religious carried a kind of social risk.

It read as uncritical. Slightly out of step. At odds with a culture that valued questioning everything and committing to very little.

And yet, something has shifted.

What was once dismissed as rigid is being reconsidered as structured. What felt dogmatic now reads, to some, as devoted.

And devotion, it turns out, is compelling.

In a way that much of modern luxury, increasingly, is not.

We’ve also been living in an overwhelmingly aspirational landscape.

Everything points forward. Toward what is next, what is better, what is not yet yours.

It is constant.

And it is exhausting.

So alongside this return to sincerity, there is a growing desire for something else:

Presence.

A kind of attention that feels almost unfamiliar now.

A way of being rooted in the moment, rather than perpetually reaching beyond it.

Presence, increasingly, feels like a luxury in itself.

At the center of all of this is a renewed respect for the idea of being moved.

Not amused. Not impressed.

Moved.

By something larger than yourself.

It does not seem to matter which religion, or even how strictly it is followed.

What matters is the orientation.

The willingness to look beyond the self.

There is also a kind of courage in this.

Not necessarily in believing, but in allowing yourself to engage.

In accepting the richness that religion offers without needing to fully resolve every question it raises.

To participate in something you do not entirely control or define requires a certain openness. A willingness to be affected.

Detachment, for all its sophistication, avoids this.

It keeps everything at a distance.
Fully observed, never fully entered.

Reverence asks for the opposite.

To be moved, you have to allow something to reach you.

Church, regardless of denomination, offers something increasingly rare:

structure
ritual
stillness
beauty
and a shared sense of attention

In church, time slows slightly, behavior is guided, and maybe most importantly, the individual is not the center of the experience.

You sit.
You listen.
You follow.

Your attention is guided, and held.

Reverence begins where the self is no longer the center.

Luxury, at its best, once operated in a similar register.

It created moments that felt set apart.
Considered. Intentional.

Almost… reverent.

There was a sense of occasion.
Of entering into something, not just consuming it.

Today, much of it does not.

In adapting to a culture of detachment, luxury became faster, more referential, more concerned with visibility than depth.

Designed to be consumed, captured, and shared rather than felt.

Reflecting the individual back to themselves, rather than elevating them beyond, often existing within the same aspirational loop as everything else.

Always pointing to the next place, the next level, the next version of yourself.

Rarely asking you to simply be where you are.

What we are seeing now is not simply a return to religion.

It is a return to reverence.

The most meaningful experiences are not the ones we fully control, but the ones we step into.

What people are responding to is not new.

It is simply something that has become rare.

Reverence.
A sense of awe.
Ritual.
Something that feels, however subtly, sacred.

For a long time, these qualities were stripped out of everyday life.

In their absence, their value has only increased.

The future of luxury will sit with those who understand this.

Not those who create more, but those who know how to create meaning.

Who understand how to design for attention, not just consumption.

Who can build experiences that feel set apart, not endlessly available.

That do not simply impress,

but move.

It is not surprising, then, that people are returning to places that still hold these qualities intact.

The question is not whether people want these things.

They always have.

The question is who will be able to provide them.

And whether luxury remembers how.

You have to love how quickly the thought zeitgeist moves. Last week, this concept felt slightly too esoteric to share — this week, after seeing conversations emerge around “luxury sound” (namely the recent HighSnobiety piece), it suddenly feels timely.

Sound, Repositioned

We tend to think of sound as something that enhances luxury. The right playlist in a hotel lobby. A perfectly tuned sound system in a store.

Even at its most elevated, sound is still positioned as support.

But what if it doesn’t belong there?

What if — go here with me — certain works of music belong in the same category as the very best luxury experiences themselves?

Not as a genre, but as a standard.

Authorship > Price

The label of luxury is not earned by objects, nor by price tag, but by authorship. Elevation. Work created with such care and intention that it leaves an emotional imprint on the recipient.

When you think about luxury in this way, some music belongs in the category quite naturally.

Luxury music is not a genre. And let’s please not take it that way, or the idea becomes insufferable rather quickly. Luxury music is what happens when sound is treated with the same level of craftsmanship we associate with the best spaces, objects, and experiences.

Rosalía, Obviously…

I was reminded of this recently while returning to Rosalía’s LUX, which demonstrates the very thing I’ve been circling: that certain music operates at the level of luxury.

Like many people, I was initially drawn to the sonic atmosphere of the record. But listening again last week, with this framework in mind, I experienced it differently.

From the very first line of the opening track, the listener is placed on a journey:

quien pudiera vivir entre los dos, primero amar al mundo luego amar al dios.

Who could live between the two — first loving the world, then loving God.

Within seconds, this is already operating beyond the level of a typical pop record. Rosalía introduces a tension that runs throughout the album: sacred and worldly, devotion and desire, flesh and transcendence.

The album becomes a composed emotional landscape. It has a beginning and an end. A sense of progression. A world that unfolds if you allow it.

What the LUX album makes clear is that luxury is not confined to objects or spaces. It can exist anywhere authorship is applied with this level of precision.

Not because it’s expensive or exclusive, but because it embodies the same principles we recognize in the most compelling creative work: emotional elevation, craft, atmosphere, and rarity.

Across 18 tracks and 13 languages, Rosalía moves through references that could easily collapse into noise in less careful hands. Flamenco traditions. Hyper-modern production. Something sacred alongside something synthetic.

Yet, it never feels crowded.

The result is a listening experience that feels almost spatial, as though you are moving through a series of rooms rather than listening to a sequence of songs.

Held Attention

That same magic is now translating into the live experience.

The response to the LUX tour has been striking. People describe it as almost religious. Entire crowds, fully present, phones down, completely locked in.

Which, in this context, makes sense.

When something is composed with this level of devotion, it doesn’t just sound good. It becomes difficult to look away from. It holds attention. It creates a shared emotional atmosphere that imprints.

And that, in itself, is real luxury. Increasingly rare.

Composition

This idea of emotional sequencing is worth noticing. Whether in music, film, fashion, or a beautifully designed hotel, power rarely comes from a singular gesture.

As a small experiment, I began pairing tracks from LUX with different luxury hotels on TikTok.

Not because they resemble one another literally, but because the emotional atmosphere aligns. Certain tracks carry the same feeling as certain spaces. A similar sense of pacing, ceremony, and intention.

This little exercrise served as a reminder of something that feels like an eternal truth in the luxury landscape: the most powerful brands, much like the most powerful albums, create a distinct emotional environment. Something intangible, but unmistakable.

You feel it immediately. You miss it when it’s gone. You return to it with a kind of longing.

Luxury has never been about excess — and no matter what the “quiet luxury” movement wants to tell you — it’s never been fully about restraint either.

The key is composition.

Luxury has always come with a price, but that’s not the point. Not at the core.

In the same way that every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square, luxury almost always involves money. But money alone does not create luxury.

For most of history, luxury was shaped primarily by beauty. Money simply made beauty possible.

This is the crux.

The Origin

Historically, luxury emerged in societies where a small portion of the population had the freedom to prioritize beauty rather than survival. Once basic needs were secure, attention could turn toward craftsmanship, art, architecture, and ritual.

Naturally, the wealthy funded this ecosystem.

But ownership and authorization of the work itself was not primarily dictated by financial mandates. Artisans, ateliers, architects, chefs, and designers earned respect (and a living) through mastery of craft.

Capital Enters the Picture

Today the relationship is more complicated. Beauty still sits at the center of luxury, but increasingly it operates inside structures governed by capital.

Before going further, it is important to say something clearly: this is not a criticism of finance.

Far from it.

Capital has enabled many of the most extraordinary brands and experiences in the world. Restoring historic hotels requires enormous investment. Scaling requires distribution. Protecting a heritage brand often requires serious financial backing, sometimes even acquisition. We are seeing this today with LVMH’s absorption of iconic names like Chez L’ami Louis.

Without capital, much of the luxury world as we know it would not exist.

Those of us who work in and around finance understand this intimately. In many cases we benefit from it. We participate in it.

But working close to capital also reveals the subtle tensions it can introduce into creative industries.

Luxury, after all, is a creative industry.

More often than not today:

The atelier belongs to a conglomerate.

The hotel group is backed by private equity.

The restaurant brand answers to investors.

The mandate has expanded. Capital is not the enemy, but it’s certainly not neutral either; it carries its own obligations.

Growth.

Scale.

Return.

This is the tension many people inside the luxury world quietly recognize but rarely say out loud.

Not because it’s scandalous, but because it’s complicated.

The Emotional Mechanism of Luxury

Simply put, luxury is an offering that can command a higher price because it delivers something elevated. Sometimes that elevation is tangible: craftsmanship, materials, time.

Often it is emotional.

Luxury elevates the way someone feels about themselves. And that, in the right context, can be priceless.

A hotel room is not just a place to sleep.

A garment is not just fabric.

A restaurant is not simply dinner.

Each offers a subtle shift in perception. A chance to recognize and relish something about one’s own taste or identity.

In this way, luxury can be a deeply personal category.

There is something beautiful about discovering oneself through taste. A fragrance, a chair, a hotel lobby, a dish. These experiences act almost like mirrors, crystallizing something that was already there.

This is the luminous side of luxury.

When Elevation Becomes a Carrot

There is a shadow side to everything, and any mechanism that can elevate someone’s sense of self can also be manipulated.

If a brand can elevate identity, it can also dangle that elevation as a promise.

You’ve seen this whether you’ve been looking for it or not.

Collections rotate faster.

Trends accelerate.

Experiences are designed to photograph well rather than feel meaningful.

The focus quietly shifts from beauty to signaling.

Luxury becomes less about the object itself and more about what owning or experiencing it implies.

Luxury now sits squarely inside this tension.

The Paris Example

Paris offers an interesting counterexample.

In recent years, the city has begun actively subsidizing certain small businesses that contribute to its cultural and aesthetic identity. Traditional bookstores, craft workshops, historic cafés, and other neighborhood institutions receive protection from rising rents or direct financial support.

At first glance, this might seem like a small urban policy decision.

But the reasoning is actually quite strategic.

The small, idiosyncratic businesses that make Paris feel like Paris are not separate from the city’s luxury economy. They are part of the ecosystem that sustains it.

The world’s most powerful luxury brands trade heavily on the mythology of Paris. Its ateliers, its craftsmanship, its café culture, its sense of history and beauty.

But that atmosphere is not created by the brands alone.

It is created by the thousands of small businesses, artisans, and cultural institutions that give the city its texture.

Left entirely to market forces, many of these businesses would disappear. Real estate economics would gradually replace them with more profitable tenants.

Paris has recognized that allowing that ecosystem to erode would ultimately weaken the very cultural identity that makes the city synonymous with luxury in the first place.

In other words, the city is doing something quite sophisticated.

It is using capital not to replace beauty, but to protect the conditions that allow beauty to exist.

What Comes Next

Which brings us to the real question facing luxury today.

Not whether capital should participate in the industry. That question has already been answered.

The more interesting question is what it looks like for capital and true brand equity to operate in genuine alignment.

Not in marketing language, but in governance.

In pacing.

In creative authority.

In the willingness to prioritize beauty even when it is inefficient.

Luxury has always relied on ecosystems of beauty that develop slowly over time.

I spoke with a colleague recently about this phenomenon and he said something that stuck with me:

“Beauty is a revelation. Luxury is born from its discovery. We simply need to create the framework that allows people to recognize it.”

The next era of luxury will belong to the brands, investors, and cities that understand this; beauty is not decoration, it is infrastructure.

If luxury is built on beauty, the real question isn’t how to scale it, but how to protect it.

Across hospitality, fashion, and travel, there is a quiet ache for a time — whether we actually remember it or have only heard it described — when experiences felt deeply considered. Tailored. Specific. Cared for.

Not grander. Not louder. Simply more attentive.

We are living in the most technologically capable era the industry has ever seen.

AI can anticipate preferences. Systems can retain memory across properties. Context can surface instantly. In theory, attention should be easier to scale than ever before.

And yet still, something feels thinner.

A few months ago, a hospitality newsletter shared Jacopo Bassano’s Renaissance painting of Martha and Mary. The image lingered for me as these conversations about technology, scale, and declining attentiveness continue to surface.

Bassano’s rendering of Luke 10:38–42 situates the scene inside a working kitchen. Copper pots hang overhead. Fish are laid out for preparation. Fire burns. Martha is absorbed in the mechanics of hosting.

Mary is positioned in direct relation to Christ, and his attention turns toward her.

Bassano structures the scene deliberately. Labor fills the margins. Attention occupies the center.

For centuries, the passage has been read as a meditation on the active and contemplative life. Not work versus idleness, but execution versus orientation.

Christ turns toward Mary because she is already turned toward him. Attention, in this sense, is reciprocal. Presence meets presence.

The scene does not reject labor. The table still requires bread. The fire must be tended. Hospitality has always required effort.

What it elevates is the idea of attention over preoccupation.

That hierarchy has always been difficult to maintain at scale.

Attention does not scale easily — at least, it hasn’t historically. It depends on continuity. On memory. On teams that stay long enough to truly know their guests. As brands expand and capital accelerates growth, that continuity thins. Complexity grows faster than orientation can keep up.

This is the structural tension at the center of modern luxury.

But we are entering a moment where that historical constraint may shift.

AI and hospitality-specific systems make it possible to institutionalize memory. Preferences can travel. Context can surface. Friction can be reduced without eliminating humanity.

Technology, in other words, can either flatten exchange into transaction — or reinforce orientation at scale.

The question is not whether AI will shape luxury. It already is.

The question is whether it will be used to optimize throughput, or to protect attention.

Used carelessly, it replaces presence with automation.

Used deliberately, it frees human teams from administrative drag so they can actually be present. It embeds attentiveness into the model rather than leaving it to individual heroics.

In that sense, AI is not the erosion of devotion. It is the first real opportunity to scale it.

When Martha protests — “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?” — Christ does not correct her labor. He names her condition.

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things… Mary has chosen what is better.”

The better, in this scene, is not idleness. It is orientation.

And orientation is not a feature. It is a discipline.

After declaring that Mary chose what was better, Christ adds: “And it will not be taken away from her.”

Perhaps what we are longing for is not a past era, but a reordered present.

The tools exist.

Memory can travel.

Care can be designed into the model.

“Better” is not gone. It is waiting to be chosen.

Couture is one of the few remaining places where that illusion occasionally breaks.

Couture Week wrapped just a few weeks ago, and I’ve found myself thinking about it ever since — about why moments of exposure in couture move us so deeply. Why seeing the work, the pressure, the care behind the polish feels so affecting. These moments reveal just how much was carried before we arrived. How much intention preceded the calm.

That’s what I felt watching Jonathan Anderson take his bow after his first Dior Haute Couture debut.

I found myself unexpectedly emotional, watching him finally exhale as the realization dawned, in real time, that the room was standing.

There’s a look in his eyes that’s humble and proud at once — something like holy f***, can you believe we did it — but without real surprise. Not shock, but recognition. Relief.

The exhaustion is visible. Not as weakness, but as evidence. The kind that only comes from carrying something heavy for a long time and refusing to set it down early.

After having single-handedly revived Loewe, sticking the landing with his Dior couture debut isn’t just success. It’s arrival. Not as an icon — but as a legend.

Watching that bow, I realized my emotion wasn’t about fashion at all. It was about witnessing devotion land. About seeing effort resolve into clarity. About recognizing the relief that comes when a vision survives exposure — and holds.

What made that moment feel so rare is how uncommon it is to feel the original intent still present.

So much arrives today polished and complete, yet strangely hollow — as if the shape survived, but the reason didn’t. Whether it’s hospitality, travel, fashion, beauty, wellness - you can feel when something comes from a lineage of care, rather than a process designed solely to produce a marketable result.

This is why couture still matters.

Not because it’s extravagant or inaccessible, but because it protects devotion at a scale where devotion is usually the first thing to disappear. Couture requires someone to hold an idea privately, tolerate misunderstanding, and resist dilution — to carry a vision all the way through without sanding down the parts that make it exact.

Couture does what luxury has broadly forgotten to do — it gives us permission to care. To believe that depth, exactness, and imagination are still worth the effort. That dreaming isn’t naïve, and devotion isn’t inefficient — it’s foundational.

This principle doesn’t belong to fashion alone.

We should feel it anywhere luxury truly endures — in rooms that feel calm rather than optimized, in experiences that linger long after they end. Places shaped not to impress quickly, but to hold meaning over time.

Watching that bow was a reminder of what luxury can be, when it remembers why it exists at all.

Sometimes that self recognition arrives unexpectedly, through encounter rather than introspection. Sometimes, it’s a place.

I often think about the first time I went to Hotel Bel-Air.

I was twenty-four. I didn’t yet know how to inhabit luxury comfortably. I moved through environments like that the way you move through a museum — careful, reverent, conscious of where to stand and how long to linger. I was used to being impressed. I wasn’t yet used to being held.

It was breakfast on a bright Los Angeles morning. Sunlight spilled across the banquettes, warm rather than blinding. The room moved slowly, as if time had been given permission to stretch. Without quite deciding to, I followed its lead. I ordered tea instead of coffee. I stopped scanning. I let the pace take me down instead of trying to rise to meet it.

Something unexpected happened. The caution fell away. My formality softened into comfort. I wasn’t trying to behave correctly anymore — for the first time, ever. I was simply there. The setting took over in a generous way. It showed me that slowness could feel pleasurable. That elevation didn’t require tension. That it could belong to me.

That wasn’t the first time a place showed me who I was — but it may have been the first time I noticed.

Years later in Mallorca, that recognition found me again, at a moment I needed it most. It was mid-August, and I was healing from a breakup, emerging from a season where I had been quietly outsourcing my own discernment — what I liked, what I wanted, what felt true.

By then, luxury was no longer novel. I sat down at the St. Regis hotel bar with a sense of ambivalence my younger self would have winced at. This wasn’t cynicism. It was distance — from my own sense of joy.

My girlfriends and I were chatting through our plans for the evening when I noticed it: the juxtaposition of a red leather barstool against a turquoise glass bar wall. Groundbreaking? Definitely not. But it cut through the noise instantly. I loved it. And in that small moment, I felt something return to me — my own eye, my own sense of taste. I spent the rest of the evening quietly pleased, grounded in myself again

These moments stay with me. They inspire me to believe in the importance of spaces that speak to our souls — to remember that, in a world of revolving-door trends, intentional design has the power to create a place that welcomes us home.

A place that says, “come, meet yourself here.”

His rooms are a performance, and they don’t apologize for it.

A few months ago, I finally went to Carbone New York. I’d been to other locations, but three years of living in the city without visiting one of its most committed institutions felt like an omission. Eventually, you have to kiss the ring.

I’ve always had an affinity for experiences that are cinematic, precise, and unapologetically accurate. Film, fashion, hospitality — it doesn’t matter. What I respond to is the discipline. The world-building. The confidence to repeat something exactly as intended, night after night, without asking if we’re all still into it.

Carbone understands this. Not in a self-conscious way. In a practiced one. The room moves as if it has muscle memory.

I’m not here to recap the meal (can you imagine). That would be tedious, and also unnecessary. We all know what the spicy rig tastes like. What’s more interesting is the construction. The placemaking. The way the experience holds itself without ever breaking character.

Outside, the city is cold, expensive, and vaguely hostile. Inside, none of that exists. You step into a system that has already decided how it wants to behave and has no interest in crowdsourcing feedback.

The raspy hum of Bobby Blue floats through the room. The maître d’ refuses to break character. Everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be. Even the interiors are dialed one notch quieter than you might expect, designed to hold the performance, not compete with it.

This is the hill I will always die on when it comes to architecting a hospitality experience — and I say this with love. We don’t return time and time again for the food. I’m comfortable saying that openly, especially because I suspect it’s something Carbone already knows. The food is great. The experience is irreplaceable. Transportive. Fun — and yes, fun is still rare among serious adults.

It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about restaurants, fashion, wellness, or something else entirely. What sets a brand apart is almost never the product alone, but the sensation it creates. We’re sentient beings. We like to feel good. That’s why we love what we love.

So no, I won’t be waiting another three years to return.

Stay there long enough and patterns emerge.
Not trends. Patterns.

Seeing how luxury is constructed, where it breaks, and what actually sustains it changed how I understand it. By the time I became a consumer myself, I had a broader relationship to luxury, one rooted less in acquisition and more in discernment.

I still work within the luxury space today, and I hope I always will. Not because I love opulence (I do), but because I’m fascinated by how often the most luxurious experiences aren’t the most extreme. They’re the most precisely calibrated. Nothing excessive. Nothing missing. Just right.

Here are a few things my backstage pass to luxury has taught me.

Luxury reduces cognitive load through precision.

The biggest misconception about luxury is that it’s defined by what you’re given. In reality, luxury is defined by what you’re spared.

The most considered experiences feel calm because someone else absorbed the complexity. Fewer choices. Clear direction. No need to orient yourself or perform expertise you didn’t sign up for.

Picture a menu edited to exactly what works, or a hotel room where the lighting and layout make sense immediately. Nothing calls attention to itself, and that’s the point.

The best experiences don’t give you more.
They give you less to think about.

Luxury is about sequence, not spectacle.

Luxury pays attention to when things happen, and when they don’t.

What comes first, what’s delayed, and what never needs to appear at all.

A drink arriving just as you sit down. Information offered before you have to ask. Silence held instead of filled. When the sequence is right, the experience feels intuitive.

Taste is the ability to edit.

Access is widely available now.
Taste is not.

Anyone can buy expensive things. Far fewer people know what to remove, what to simplify, what to leave out, even when budget allows.

Restraint creates trust. But editing requires confidence and expertise, knowing not just what belongs, but why.

Taste is knowing when explanation would cheapen the experience.

Luxury respects your time.

This is one of the clearest signals.

You’re not waiting without context. You’re not unsure of what comes next. You’re not compensating for someone else’s lack of planning. The experience moves with you, not against you.

Nothing breaks the spell of luxury faster than being made to wait for someone else’s mistake.

Precision shows up here too, in pacing, communication, and follow-through. When time is handled well, you feel it immediately.

Ease is memorable.

The experiences that stay with us aren’t always the most extravagant, they are often those where we felt at ease. This can be true in hospitality, but it can also be true in a less obvious setting, for example when your capital is handled by a team of people you trust.

We remember the experiences where we don’t have to translate, perform, or stay alert. Where the environment fits us, not the other way around.

The highest form of luxury is not being made to adapt.

This is precision at an emotional level. Reading the room. Adjusting without announcing it. Knowing when to engage and when to step back.

Luxury isn’t about excess.
It’s about alignment.

My backstage pass to the inter-workings of luxury didn’t make me want more.
It made me want better, and less of what doesn’t matter.

Once you see luxury through this lens, you start finding it in places that have nothing to do with price. A morning coffee made exactly the way you like it. A closet of pieces that fit and get worn. Music that matches the moment instead of competing with it.

These things aren’t luxurious because they’re expensive.
They’re luxurious because they’re just right.

This changed how I move through spaces. How I notice what’s off. How I think about quality, in my routines, in my home, when I’m hosting. It made me more selective, not more indulgent.

Luxury isn’t about having more.
It’s about how precisely something has been considered, and how little you’re asked to notice that consideration.

When that care is present, it’s priceless.

Just like any other creative person, I can be insufferably committed to seeing a deeper meaning in things. So naturally - the idea that this daring and beautiful collection was inspired by the rejection of a cautionary lesson of Greek Mythology?!? Ugh. Daniel Roseberry. I love you!

I think we all know Icarus, but just in case you’ve forgotten: dad builds wings for his son (Icarus), warns him not to fly too close to sun bc wings will melt, son disobeys, wings melt, sea plunge, RIP Icarus.

Without totally shoving aside the obvious lesson here (stop while you’re ahead, be humble, great is the downfall of good, everything in moderation) - I’m going to talk about why I (and apparently the CD of Schiaparelli) think Icarus gets a bad rep.

To me - the myth presents the choice we all have. Enjoy your wings responsibly, fly inside the lines and reap the benefits of a measured life (I’m not being facetious - of course there are benefits), OR, recognize we have one life to live, be a bit delulu and aim to fly higher, even at the risk of falling.

If I’m honest, I think I’m partial to the second option but guilty of taking the first sometimes. What can I say - responsible eldest daughter is not exactly a daring prototype. And yet - every win I’ve ever had was found on the other side of a limit slightly pushed. In fact, the more I realize that what I really want in life is to experience the fullest and most colorful version, the more adventurous and daring I become. Risk and reward?

When interviewed about the collection, Daniel Roseberry said “the idea of Icarus wasn’t the defeat, but rather the noble attempt”.

So sue me but I’m not sure I like the cautionary tale! I prefer versions of the Icarus story which note that he fell to the sea smiling - noble attempt, no regrets.

I suppose this is all to say - I’m a fan of people who push creative boundaries (or even just their own perception of what’s possible) and end up delivering something like this collection - which is so stunningly beautiful and unique it could never have been a product of the mundane.

I’m going to try and implement this even just 2% more in my own life, because quite simply, why not? When we’re given wings, may we seek the sun.

Two weeks ago I watched the film Maria with Angelina Jolie. On my mind since? 1960’s Paris, Opera (chic), and the classic archetypal nature of Maria’s life story; a beautiful and talented woman, very successful and yet very alone in a glamorous and unforgiving world. Seems to be a tale as old as time - is it still?

My favorite line: “I’m saying my own thoughts out loud. It’s a new thing. My thoughts. Out loud.”

I don’t love sad movies, which this undoubtedly turned out to be, but I do like the rare occasion that a female character is depicted in such a raw and three dimensional way.

As portrayed, Maria was gifted and alluring, difficult and delicate and passionate and a force to be reconned with - all depending on the day. In my experience, this is true of so many of us (women) if / when we show our full range. This isn’t a feminist commentary - I’m just struck by the fact that seeing a female character be so embodied stands out as much as it does.  I mean - she was also one of the most famous sopranos of all time, but I would argue that’s not why we’re watching a film about her life today.

All of that to say, Maria seems like the type of girl that would have been a real hoot to chat with over martinis. Legend has it she loved Maxim’s - same.

For fun, here’s my iconic grandmother in 1960’s Paris.

In other musings: