The New Definition of Luxury: The Neurology of Desire and the Value of Time

Everything is changing, as value judgments transform, consumption values ​​also differ. It is believed that luxury is dead. The personal luxury market shrank for the first time in 15 years, the sector lost 50 million customers in one year, and the shares of the largest groups declined. This situation raises curiosity about people's desires because it is not about luxury objects, it is mostly fueled by the emotions that objects evoke in people.

It's time to look at the neurology of desire, the mathematics of satiation. One of the most replicated findings of neuromarketing research is that the brain's reward circuits work with the expectation rather than the object. Dopamine rises not at the moment of possession, but at the possibility of possession. "Wanting" and "liking" follow separate paths in the brain. For 100 years, the luxury industry has intuitively navigated this distinction: Waiting lists, limited production, approval earned by a salesperson's gaze... All are tools that prolong expectation, thus fueling desire. Scarcity is one of the brain's oldest decision shortcuts. We value the little, because in our evolutionary past, the little was truly valuable. In the new world, people apply this "scarcity" strategy not to objects; It seems to apply to their relationships.

UNLIMITED INCREASE OF THE IMAGE

Social media has reversed this mechanism. Let's take the Birkin bag, one of the symbol designs of luxury: This object of desire, whose prices vary between 10 thousand and 200 thousand dollars depending on the model, has increased visually unlimitedly, even if it remains physically rare. In each post, the image of this object was repeated once again. From a perceptual perspective, the response to repeated stimuli decreases, this is what we call "habituation". If an object appears everywhere, seeing it no longer fires any circuits in our brains. Birkin's second-hand premium has fallen from 2.2 to 1.4 in three years, and this information confirms the neurological truth: Saturation kills desire. Luxury brands are disappearing without doing anything, just being seen where they stand.

I came across another finding: fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) studies have shown that if the same wine is offered at a higher price, it evokes a stronger response in the pleasure centers of the brain. Price determines the value of any object, and this value increases the longer the price is based on a story, craft, and rarity. On the other hand, brands have tended to increase prices in recent years, regardless of the story. Consumers can now access information and comparisons so quickly that they immediately noticed this gap. The sector sometimes refers to the lack of interest that arises because of this as a "desire gap", but if you ask me, it is simply a meaning gap!

CONSTORIOUS CONSUMPTION

Norwegian-American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen introduced the concept of "conspicuous consumption" in his book "The Theory of the Leisure Class", published in 1899. The book was written during the so-called "Gilded Age" period of America, observing the spending patterns of the new class that became rich with the industrial revolution. Veblen's conspicuous consumption suggested that status was established through visible spending. Nearly 80 years later, Bourdieu went beyond this with La Distinction (1979) and argued that status is not established by money, but by a cultural code fed by taste and knowledge. According to the thinker, knowing the grip of a fabric or the history of a cut is a more difficult skill than reading a logo, and therefore a more effective sign.

The trend we popularize today as "quiet luxury" is simply a rediscovery of Bourdieu's thesis by the market. A luxury logo, which is the image on jewelry, belt buckles and bag tops today, lost its value as soon as it turned into a code that everyone could decipher.

THE LUXURY CONTRADICTION OF GENERATION Z

There is also a behavioral irony in the luxury consumer: He wants to both belong to the crowd and stand out from it. Bain & Company's annual luxury report, prepared with Altagamma, clearly observes this contradiction in Generation Z: The desire to share and the desire to be special live side by side in the same person. The tragedy of quiet luxury was that it too spread as an ingredient, and beige cashmere became the new uniform. In the economy of visibility, no sign can remain silent for long.

Interesting reflections of these developments naturally govern the design. Against visual saturation, the design seems to be drawn to the area of ​​the hand, not the eye. The highlights of this year's Salone del Mobile confirmed this: tactile designs such as the infiltration of lacquered surfaces into upholstered furniture, hand-embroidered textile wall coverings, the return of specially textured wood paneling, and Patricia Urquiola's three-dimensional tiles attracted attention. The purpose of this tendency is that they remain incomplete in photography and cannot be fully understood. The depth of a lacquered surface, the relief of the engraving, and the temperature of the wood are information that cannot be transmitted from the screen. The emotions people feel through the sense of touch are more inaccessible than the sense of sight, but much more permanent. As if by a conscious decision, furniture design switches to a language that the algorithm cannot recognize. The interior is no longer a decoration, but is rapidly turning into an atmosphere with a whole of meanings.

The same trend can be read in fashion design: Small workshops, well-known masters, materials that leave a patina, and products that change over time and therefore cannot be summarized with a single image come to the fore. In short, an object can become an object again when it refuses to be a photographic frame.

TIME AND PLEASURE

So let's not fall prey to the pretentious idea that luxury is dead; It would be more fair to say that the definition of luxury, that is, its existence established through visibility, has gone bankrupt. The definition it replaces is more honest to our perceptions.

Desire is fueled by expectation; expectation is achieved by time and distance; Time is the scarcest resource for people today. Living this time satisfactorily and devotedly is the most valid definition of the new luxury.

Values ​​such as an undocumented evening, an unattainable afternoon, a chair used for years knowing that it was made by a master, can never go viral because we cannot consume any of them instantly. Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès, sums it up in one sentence: "True luxury is allowing enough time for creation." I add: In order to get enough pleasure from an object, it is necessary to allow this time. The real point of design is to make objects to be experienced, not to be shared.