HYPE HYPE, BABY

Our current obsession with luxury goods has been fuelled by the rapid growth of new social media technologies and a pandemic-induced over-indulgence of it

-  KELLY LEWI

THERE WAS A TREND on TikTok: “If you adore her, Dior her,” sung by Moneybagg Yo. Clips featuring his chorus usually revolve around someone purchasing Dior products for their significant other. Even things as small as a lip balm sufficed, as long as it was stamped with the emblem of the House. Does it ever bother you why people are obsessed with this in the first place?

What are they – and by extension, we as a people – trying to prove? I will preface this by saying that luxury goods are sought after. They are known as “Veblen goods”.

It’s a term coined by American economist Thorstein Veblen, who first identified conspicuous consumption as a mode of status-seeking. Economically speaking, it is a type of luxury goods for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent (but not actual) contradiction of the law of demand, it is the reason why luxury conglomerates have expanded even in the face of cheaper, faster fashion alternatives.

At its core, luxury brands don’t just confer a social status, they also feed a primitive reward-feedback mechanism by giving you a sense of accomplishment with a “milestone trophy” for each significant achievement. This is a time-honoured tradition exacerbated even more so now with the advent of social media technology. Not a day goes by without scrolling through one’s Instagram feed at least for a couple of minutes, or watching a few TikTok videos during the commute. In those few short time-spans, we are already forced to keep up with the “Kardashians” of the social media world.