What is luxury?

What is luxury?

It means something different to everyone.

After 35 years of working in fashion and beauty as an independent entrepreneur, I can only speak from my personal experience – and from the perspective of what I consider true luxury today.

In recent years, the word “luxury” has become almost entirely associated with material things:

The Lambo in the driveway.

The canvas handbag with calfskin straps and oversized logos.

The infinity pool rooftop bar in Dubai or Singapore.

The Michelin-starred restaurant on the 200th floor with a 360-degree view.

But is that really luxury?

Or is it more about being seen?

A Lambo, a yacht, gold a and a thousand phones watching . Is this luxury ?

Hardly anyone genuinely enjoys these things anymore.

Most people spend their time at such places trying to capture the perfect photo for social media – not to live the moment, but to document it.

The so-called “pleasure” becomes just another performance.

First comes an hour of chasing the perfect light.

Then posing, filtering, posting.

And just as it’s done:

“Thank you – your reserved pool slot is now over.”

Is that luxury?

Is luxury standing in line for hours outside designer boutiques, just to buy an overpriced bag?

Is it crowding around an infinity pool with 500 strangers, trying to take that one iconic shot?

Or squeezing onto a hill in Mykonos with thousands of others, each pretending later they had the sunset all to themselves?

What part of that is truly luxurious?

Has luxury now become nothing more than the pursuit of belonging?

Belonging to “those others” – the ones who would never stand in line, never pose in a crowd, never have to prove anything?

Is luxury now just a surface-level display of things people often can’t truly afford – just to keep up the illusion of status?

And then? Two weeks of eating potatoes because the fridge is empty.

For me, luxury is something entirely different:

▸ Staying anonymous

▸ Enjoying things – quietly and privately

▸ Buying something because you love it, not to show it off

▸ Having time – real time

▸ Spending it with the people who matter

That’s what I call real luxury.

But in the end – it’s up to each of us to decide what that means.