The 2008 crash abruptly ended ostentatious luxury and shifted consumption toward discretion.

Evidence

At least temporarily, the crash did close out a period of money-forward tastes. “People were dripping in gold,” recalled Christina Binkley of The Wall Street Journal. “Fashion had been really loud and it was a huge party, and then that shifted literally overnight.” After the crash, the wealthy still shopped but with greater discretion. French luxury brand Hermès was rumored to have replaced its signature orange shopping bags with generic brown ones to avoid attracting attention. The middle classes didn’t lose their new lust for luxury goods, but they hunted for bargains on Gilt Groupe and embraced direct-to-consumer substitutes, like Warby Parker’s ninety-five-dollar glasses. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 210

Categorization

• CANDY: The Hermès brown-bag rumor is a fun, self-contained dinner-party tidbit about wealthy discretion cloaking brand loyalty.
• ADDENDUM: Relates to the immodesty-article thread — covert luxury consumption is a modern dress-signaling analogue where display shifts to concealment but the status game persists.