How the spending habits of millionaires have created two distinct luxury worlds
The rich, who are more discreet about how they show wealth, increasingly buy goods online and brands with which they feel a connection
The definition of luxury is evolving – and the change applies not only to what people are spending money on, but also how they are doing it.
“In the last few years, we have seen the crystallisation of two luxury worlds,” Wealth-X, the global ultra-high-net-worth intelligence company, said in its 2019 handbook.
“One focuses on an encyclopedic choice of luxury products available at a click; another which is doubling down on the experience mantra.”
The handbook examines the spending habits and preferences of people whose net worth is between US$1 million and US$30 million.
The shift in how people are spending their wealth coincides with an era in which people are choosing to display their wealth differently than previous generations did – in a far more discreet way
This is an era where brands such as Goyard – a two-century-old Parisian company that eschews any type of advertising but represents the pinnacle of luxury for the world's elite – and investments such as education, security and privacy are the chosen trappings of the world’s wealthiest people.
Still, luxury fashion is booming, and it partially has to do with how it’s consumed.