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<\/div>\nAs a result, the luxury industry has seen clients leaning toward a quieter form of personal expression. Indulgence has become more selective, more inward-looking \u2013 a state of refinement measured not by what you acquire, but by how you choose to spend time and devote attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the opposite of conspicuous consumption,\u201d says Ana Andjelic, brand strategist and author of The Sociology of Business<\/a> <\/em>newsletter. \u201cToday, the true class distinction is behavioral, social and psychological. It\u2019s reflected in nuance \u2013 in taste, knowledge, and how you live, rather than what you own.\u201d In other words, indulgence in 2026 is much more about prioritizing individual discernment and curating a sense of taste than the trend-driven consumption and status signaling that has characterized the past 10-plus years of growth in luxury markets.<\/p>\n The data backs up Andjelic\u2019s theory. The Business of Fashion<\/em> and McKinsey\u2019s collaborative The State of Luxury Fashion<\/em>: Luxury 2025<\/em><\/a> <\/em>report notes that growth in luxury goods is decelerating from an average of 5 percent per year between 2019 and 2023, to between 2 percent and 4 percent a year from 2025 to 2027. Meanwhile, around 80 percent of the 250 luxury spenders interviewed for the report intend to redirect their spending toward experiential luxury.<\/p>\n There are tell-tale signs of this shift across all the luxury sectors. In the fine-art market, for example, Sotheby\u2019s reported a doubling of its losses to $248m in September last year, while Hauser & Wirth\u2019s UK subsidiary reported an 87 percent decline in 2024 pretax profit.<\/p>\n The Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII), which tracks growth across 10 collectible luxury asset classes, reported a 3.3 percent fall in The Wealth Report 2025<\/a><\/em>, with fine art taking a particular beating (-18.3 percent), followed by wine (-9.1 percent), whisky (-9 percent), furniture (-2.8 percent), and colored diamonds (-2.2 percent).<\/p>\n With statistics like these in mind, it\u2019s unsurprising that companies such as London-based fine wines and spirits merchant Berry Bros & Rudd had a tough start to 2025. BB&R reportedly trimmed around 7.5 percent of its workforce through redundancy consultations. But the company maneuvered intelligently throughout the year, introducing new service lines and opening its first US store in Washington DC in November.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the fine wines and spirits world, indulgence in a traditional sense almost equates to gluttony and overconsumption, but this has shifted quite dramatically,\u201d says Geordie Willis, BB&R\u2019s director of new ventures. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a new audience coming into the space from a collector\u2019s perspective. They\u2019re thinking less about investment, for example, and more about collecting in the traditional sense of ownership and experience [\u2026] the idea that wine and spirits should be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n For a brand such as BB&R, this means investing in the experiences that sit around wines and spirits, as well as recomputing some of the demand drivers for purchase. The brand\u2019s new auction<\/a> business, which launched in October 2024, is a new way to exploit this.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people want is not necessarily something that is brand-new and shiny, they want something that has history, heritage, and a story behind it,\u201d says Willis. \u201cIf you layer the heritage side of what we do with some of the bottles and the stories that those bottles can tell, the combination is quite a heady one [\u2026] sourcing something that may have been sitting in perfect cellar conditions for 50 years, stored by someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u2018experience economy\u2019 is, of course, nothing new. The term was coined by B Joseph Pine II and James H Gilmore in their landmark 1998 Harvard Business Review<\/em> article. Regardless, investing in exceptional experiences, or in products that are wrapped up in a novel experience of some kind, still holds weight.<\/p>\n \u201cMost luxury brands have already mastered the art of exceptional service; now they are moving into the domain of superior experiences,\u201d says Andjelic. \u201cTake, for example, Brunello Cucinelli<\/a>\u2019s townhouse, down the street from his store on Madison Avenue [in New York<\/a>\u2019s Manhattan], which is made to be an experience for his wealthiest clients.\u201d<\/p>\n Other fashion brands are experimenting with similar concepts. In the UK last year, Burberry partnered with bougie Somerset hotel The Newt for a summer-long takeover with Burberry-themed afternoon tea, hot-air-balloon rides, picnics, and more. Elsewhere, Zegna launched Villa Zegna in 2024, a nomadic, invite-only members club for VIP clients, which pops up in different cities (so far these have comprised Shanghai, New York and Dubai<\/a>) offering salons, dinners, talks, and exhibitions.<\/p>\n Likewise, the automotive sector has had to think carefully about the role it plays in an experience-driven luxury market. Marek Reichman, Aston Martin<\/a>\u2019s VP and chief creative officer, identifies indulgence as the opportunity to invest in real-world sensory experiences. \u201cWe live in an ever-more digital world, where digital gives us access to everything,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t give us the smell, or the touch, or the danger, or the rain that you might feel. And the more money we have, the more we can indulge in the real.\u201d<\/p>\n Pursuing this, Aston has invested in communicating the visceral, sensory nature of driving its cars through the medium of its striking \u2018Intensity. Driven.\u2019 ad campaigns. These highlight the granular, human moments of high performance driving \u2013 from hairs standing on end to irises dilating \u2013 and articulate Aston\u2019s philosophy on car-building. \u201cAll of the technology we\u2019re deploying is not to divorce you from the driving experience, but to heighten your experience as a driver,\u201d Reichman explains.<\/p>\n The brand is also thinking laterally, offering extensive car customization (the Q by Aston Martin service) to deepen client interactions with the brand. More than 50 percent of Valhalla customer orders now request Q customizations, while models such as the Valkyrie and Valiant often have more than 80 percent Q content. More lateral still, experiments such as the Aston Martin branded residences<\/a> in Miami<\/a>, which bring the brand\u2019s distinctive tone and aesthetic to life in real estate, have been successful. \u201cYou walk in through the front door, and it feels like the ambiance of an Aston Martin,\u201d says Reichman.<\/p>\n![\"Raffles-The-Butler-Did-It-future-of-luxury\"](\"https:\/\/elitetraveler.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2025\/12\/raffles-the-butler-did-it-future-of-luxury-2560x2335.jpg\")
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