Having a Hermès Birkin was once the litmus test for being extremely wealthy. With yearslong wait-lists and eye-popping price tags, the purse was the ultimate symbol of luxury—until Walmart started selling an aesthetically identical version for $80 instead of $25,000.
Fashion lovers on TikTok were quick to hype up the low-price retailer’s affordable Birkin dupe, celebrating that they finally had access to the bag gate-kept by the one percent. Content creators criticized those turning their noses up at knockoffs, saying that non-rich people still deserve to own the style. Dupes such as the Walmart “Birkin” brought high fashion to the middle class. It was one step closer to leveling the playing field.
“The shame of buying these things has gone,” Alice Sherwood, author of Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture, told Wired. “Luxury prices have skyrocketed while the trend cycle has rapidly accelerated. People no longer want to spend upwards of [thousands] on the latest ‘it’ bag that might be out of vogue within a year.”
The Walmart Birkin is just one of many luxury product knockoffs that have flooded the market. No item or brand is impervious from cheap imitation—from specialty Jordan sneakers, to the purse dupes sold on Canal Street, to high-end hair care. Other elements of a luxury lifestyle have become more accessible too. Looking “healthy” or aesthetically pleasing—with clear skin, a symmetrical face, and slim-fit body—became the new signifier of wealth. But with the rise of Ozempic and lower-cost cosmetic procedures, that’s no longer out of reach for people in different tax brackets, either.
The upper class has also given luxury brands the cold shoulder in recent years—especially Chinese consumers. High-fashion products are getting more expensive, but that cost increase hasn’t correlated with a rise in innovation or quality. And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and wallets were squeezed, fewer people were shelling out for things that were no longer enthralling.
Now the ultrarich have ditched their old standards of luxury and are signaling their status in new ways.
The ultrarich resistance and new status symbols for the 1%
Members of the upper class are flashing their funds in more creative ways that in some cases have nothing to do with overt spending. Privacy, leisure activities, novel items, and expressing oneself have become new touchpoints of prosperity. It’s not about having the money to afford an item, it’s about having the means to ditch hustle culture and getting ahead.
Privacy and unplugging
Eugene Healey, a brand strategy consultant and TikTok content creator with over 115,000 followers on the platform, delved into a few of his theories in a video. One is that privacy and being detached from the internet will become a status symbol. In the video Healey explained that as more people are trapped in a chronic feedback loop scrolling their days away, it’s a flex to unplug. And when someone still knows all the cool restaurants and stylish brands, but didn’t find them online, then they show their genuine proximity to wealth. They don’t need to search for the best cocktail bars; they exist in a tax bracket that already frequents the trendy spots.
“Being chronically offline is the new flex,” Healey said in the video posted in January.
Leisure time and activities
Another marker of the 1% is having the luxury to choose how to spend their downtime. The upper class enjoying their leisure time is in stark contrast to the many middle-class workers holding down several jobs. Healey said that leading an effortless existence signals the rich don’t have the typical financial constraints others do—and academics are weighing in too.
Silvia Bellezza, an associate professor of business at Columbia Business School, found that leisure activities can denote status. In her 2023 study, she said that there is a connection between active or passive downtime pursuits, and wealth expression. How one chooses to spend their free hours is tied to their social perception—and Bellezza has found that even in off-hours, rich individuals are “often using physical or mental energy to pursue wellness, health, and personal development.” This could entail playing pickleball at a country club; reading entrepreneurial and self-help books; baking fresh bread without preservatives.
Novel and expressive clothing
One of the biggest reasons why the ultrarich is resisting bougie status symbols is because high-end brands are falling short on their promises—which has onetime customers turning to new physical indicators. Fifty million luxury consumers exited the market between 2022 and 2024, according to a report published last year from Bain & Company. Chinese buyers—once considered to be the next cohort of luxe shoppers—also jumped ship during lockdown. Brands like Dior, Estée Lauder, Louis Vuitton, and Burberry took a huge hit as customers grew fed up with expensive items they found uninspiring.
“Since 2019, there’s been a high price increase across luxury without a corresponding increase in innovation, service, quality, or appeal that a luxury brand should provide,” Marie Driscoll, an equity analyst focused on luxury retail, told Fortune last year. “This year [2024], that really hit consumers, and we felt the full impact.”
Because of this, Bellezza predicted that novel clothing items that reflect the buyer’s self-expression or values of sustainability will be the new “it” items. Buying a Prada bag or Jimmy Choo heels says nothing personal about the consumer. And since knockoffs are so accessible and clothing has become uninspiring, signaling self will be the next frontier.
Burberry has responded to this trend with a personalization hub focused on monogramming luxury items with a customer’s initials, while Louis Vuitton has recently leaned into more colorful styles than its classic brown leather look.
Looking rich is more accessible than ever
Gone are the days of daydreaming in front of Saks Fifth Avenue displays. Even middle-class consumers can now steal the looks for less.
Dupes have become a huge market over the years. Many fast-fashion retailers recognized the middle class’s insatiable appetite for clothing items worn by the affluent, and the industry became the Hunger Games for who could push out dupes faster. This demand for low-price fashion coincided with a rise in consumerism and “buy now” mentality. People see an item and want it immediately; loving something their favorite celebrity wore, they buy a cheap imitation version of it on the spot.
After the rise of affordable knockoffs, the ultrarich then moved the goalpost to a new standard of wealth: health and aesthetic beauty. Whether that be investing in $40 Pilates classes, at-home IV drips, lip filler, organic produce, or weight-loss drugs, celebrities and the one percent touted all the ways they were reversing the biological clock. Being slim signaled that one had more “self control,” or had access to healthy foods and boutique workout memberships. Looking youthful was another signifier—but then the middle class got ahold of facelifts and Wegovy. Increased demand, competition, and expanded insurance coverage have driven prices down; the net price of Ozempic in the U.S. declined 40% between 2024 and 2017, when it was introduced to the American market.
The status symbols of the one percent have typically revolved around appearance. But with the democratization of beauty, skin care, cosmetic enhancements, and fashion, new emblems of success are a bit more behavioral. And as luxury brands have failed to hold the attention of their customers, more are turning to the abstract alternates.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on February 7, 2025.
