Think about that. That last part, specifically. Doesn’t wearing a rent check’s worth of price difference seem a little… well… inconsistent?

While the casualization of luxury is certainly a modern and unprecedented trend, the prices of even the most “casual” luxury goods (sneakers, down jackets, etc.) are priced and distributed as prohibitively as ever before. Affordable luxury brands (Coach, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, even The North Face/Patagonia) have always existed and continued to exist, but only recently has true luxury began to permeate the market on a large scale.

Canada Goose and Moncler are multiple standard deviations in cost above the “expensive winter coats” of years past, and more significantly are marketed specifically as luxury goods. Even the infamous black North Face parkas of years past topped out at $600, a full 33% less than the cheapest full-length Canada Goose. Past price barriers alone, luxury brands are characterized by attainability - how easy it is to even access the product, regardless of your ability to spend. North Face jackets were available at sporting goods stores around the country. Moncler has 14 mono-brand stores in the United States, and only a handful of high-end retail accounts. How, then, did luxury jackets become ubiquitous enough to warrant YouTube parodies?