Growing up in the Northeastern U.S. as a now 24-year-old member of Gen Z, I remember how clear society and the media’s message was that I was less than the ideal. Despite being white, I was never going to be the tall, thin, clear-skinned, waspy, girl with an upturned, slender nose, and thick, long, straight, golden/chestnut hair.
We all have an idea of who this girl is. She has a trust fund, a few horses, a labrador, and spent summers growing up at her parent’s vacation property in the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard -complete with full country club access and a private dock for their boat. The family takes ski trips to Vermont every winter. Her parents’ house isn’t flashy or modern and is seemingly unassuming, other than being large or perfectly positioned geographically near enough to a desirable city. It’s decorated with heritage family furniture and items brought back home from vacations all over the world. She had the best private school education, the best private tennis coach, she’s bilingual, went to an Ivy-League University, and has both parents who are likely still married.
Unfortunately, most of us have already missed the boat on being from an “old money” family, and many of us have never actually met a person who comes from an old money family. So how is it that us plebeians have such a clear idea of what being a member of the wealthy elite looks like?
Social media would have you believe that it looks like boat rides on Lake Como, stays at the Ritz, 2-piece tweed skirt suits with gold buttons, crystal chandeliers, marble busts, draping a sweater over your shoulders, and clock-able designer accessories.
I would imagine that old money life, including their everyday fashion, living spaces, and social gatherings, would be much more heavily gate-kept and guarded, and couldn’t be so easily made into a TikTok collage by a middle-class teenager using Pinterest images of 90s Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie ads. It’s unapologetically exclusive and elitist, without bragging or being performative. It’s much more complex than cable knits and golf.
The fact that the lives of the famous are exposed like they’ve never been before in the last 30 years with social media, MTV Cribs, and Architectural Digest celebrity home tours, gives us the illusion that we really know how the rich live. This is where the argument of old money vs. new money (fame and celebrity) comes into play – but that’s another topic.
As the aesthetic gains more and more popularity on the internet, the aesthetic of “old money” also goes hand-in-hand with another aesthetic, “quiet luxury,” a phrase coming from the common trope that “money talks, but wealth whispers.” It’s the idea that people with new money are attention-seeking, flashy, IG follower hungry, name-dropping, red Lamborghini-driving, crass people who will take every opportunity to shove their new found wealth in everyone else’s faces. The old money wealthy, on the other hand, you’ve never heard of, but they are well-known and respected in their field, they never discuss money in social settings, dress rather unremarkably, defend their reputation at all costs, have “friends in high places,” and don’t spend money frivolously.
The “clean girl” aesthetic is also closely related as it links the perception of hygiene to class, a historically common idea.
The names of a few “quiet luxury brands” have seemingly slipped through the white knuckled grasp of old money families and surfaced on TikTok and YouTube. Khaite, The Row, and Loro Piana, to name a few, but trust me, what the ultra wealthy are wearing- we’ve probably never heard of before. I’m not saying they don’t wear Vineyard Vines, Polo, or Lacoste, I’m sure they do, I’m just saying that I believe trying to make the wealthy feel more relatable to us for the sake of our own comfortability is a misplaced grab for a boost in self-esteem and self identity. All people have undeniable shared experiences that humanize us, of course, but I also think it’s important to recognize how far our differences go, including in classism.
Quick side story…
Living in a New York apartment has many perks as well as annoyances, including occasionally having to sift through the mail of the previous tenant that is still being sent to your address. I don’t know the woman who previously lived in my apartment, but I do know that she had expensive taste. First came a catalog for home decor brand Serena & Lily, who sell $500 duvet covers, $2k deck chairs, and a set of 4 placemats for $178.00. Expensive, sure, but not outlandish. I saw their website even used the phrase “quiet luxury” when I was researching this post. Which I guess means they’re definitely not “quiet luxury”.
Then, some time later, came a catalog for a retailer I’ve never heard of, with one of my favorite super models, Jasmine Tookes, on the cover wearing a matching green silk jacket and skirt, standing on the top of what appeared to be a mountain peak in the Swiss Alps. The set together costs $4.2k, not including the $18,000 diamond necklace – which they also sell.
I opened the GORSUCH catalog, to find another familiar face: Taylor Hill. I know of both of these models from gigs like Victoria’s Secret, but here they were, standing on a mountaintop in a mink fur vest vest. They carried brands aside from their own, including Brunello Cucinelli, Etro, Zimmermann, W. Kleinberg, and Herno, most of which I’d never heard of. They specialize mainly in ski attire with many European luxury brands, as the American founders were both 1960 Winter Olympic skiers.
Anyway…
My point in all this is not to discourage you and tell you that you’ll never “get the look” or that you’ll never be well-off, but rather to explore the idea of self-acceptance or self-awareness, that the only thing that could give you the “old money aesthetic” is being from an old money family.
“Aesthetics” and “-core” are simply repackaged lifestyle branding, which is selling you the idea of a lifestyle, so much more than an aesthetic. The aesthetic of our choosing makes us feel a certain way about ourselves, and teens/young adults are constantly reinventing themselves in the process of figuring out who it is that they really are. I can’t tell you how many times I personally have done an entire wardrobe overhaul in the name of “finally discovering my own personal style” when it was really just me replicating an already existing style that was perfectly curated and advertised to me online that I thought would finally make me feel beautiful.
I believe it comes from the uniquely modern ability to be able to select things with extreme specificity. You don’t have to be able to afford the flight and time off to shop in that boutique in Paris – they have worldwide shipping. You don’t have to settle for whatever knee high boots are at your closest DSW, you can scour the internet far and wide for a thousand hours through endless options until you find exactly what you want. You aren’t limited to whatever’s on TV, or whatever restaurants are around, whatever your local grocery store carries, only dating local people you meet in person – we are able to curate like never before. We control everything, except we don’t, we can’t.
We can constantly compare ourselves to millions of other people, hear millions of opinions, interact and observe so many personalities, and it can be so confusing entering adulthood without enough self love – otherwise you have to remember that you wanted your laugh to sound more like hers now, and you keep your nails short now cause it “looks more expensive”, and that you said you’d never wear your natural hair out of the house again.
We can wear whatever makes us feel comfortable, beautiful, or happy, but stuffing ourselves into the rigid box that is an “aesthetic” is just an example of our need for extreme control and self-avoidance that will only end in disappointment and burnout. If our clothes or makeup that genuinely make us feel good just-so-happen to align with some of the attributes of an “aesthetic” that’s fine, but seeking an identity in one isn’t, because aesthetics are so much more than just clothes. It’s like those starter pack memes or when Pinterest outfit collages include non-clothing items like specific beverages/foods, tech, and other random objects. That’s because it’s a feeling, it’s where you shop, what you do in a day, what you like to read, what you eat and drink, where you live… almost like it’s who you are.
I understand the appeal, artistically, of making these collages to convey the exact mood, occasion for wearing this outfit, activities you do while wearing it, location, etc. It’s heavily romanticized, which if you know me, you know I love a healthy dose of romanticism, but there is such thing as too much.
Conclusion
So yes, when I’m looking for outfit inspiration, I still search things like “Parisian chic,” or “old money style” but with considerable discernment of whether or not those images align with my already existing personal style. I wanted to write this post as a bit of a preface for my yearly Autumn Capsule Wardrobe post and video, to fully explain why although I might use popular hashtags like #oldmoney or #quietluxury to boost my exposure, my feelings on those terms go much deeper.
