At the start of a recently acclaimed feature film, an exacting conductor is seen picking out fabrics for a series of custom shirts, suits, and coats. The tailor’s dressing room oozes luxury, but a logo is nowhere in sight. Lydia Tár doesn’t wear labels on her sleeves. As if. In her soft-pedal bespoke finery, she is the spiritual lodestar of an increasingly visible type, the woman who doesn’t need to use fashion to broadcast her power—or deep pockets. Call her the low-key rich bitch.
Look around and you’ll spy her everywhere: pushing a cart around Erewhon in Los Angeles in a buttery nappa leather bomber. Is that the new…Loewe? Yep. Or slipping into an afternoon screening of The Conformist at New York’s Film Forum in a broad-shouldered, floor length trench that the untrained eye may not recognize but those in the know immediately clock as fresh-off-the-runway Saint Laurent. She’s probably reading this magazine right now through Morgenthal Frederics glasses.
The low-key rich bitch is not a new phenomenon. She has been with us since time immemorial, from the days of Empress Joséphine—whose evening wear rejected the rococo excess of Marie Antoinette—up to the golden age of designer Phoebe Philo, still the queen of this cohort, which hangs on every post from the Instagram account @oldceline (393,000 followers and growing). But the spring runways gave the #LKRB a lot of new options to choose from.
“Brands embraced simplicity across their collections and are clearly anticipating that customers will be adopting this approach to dressing,” says Libby Page, the market director at the e-commerce site Net-a-Porter.
This story is from the March 2023 edition of Town & Country US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the March 2023 edition of Town & Country US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
As If We Never Said GOOD BYE
A designer restores a historic home by an the glory it enjoyed during its classic Hollywood heyday.
SIR Mix-a-Lot
Look, Muffy, our old clothes are back! A generation consumed with nostalgia rediscovers and reshuffles trad style their way. The new official preppy dress code is here, and one pony is riding high.
Les Robes Dangereuses
In Revolution-era Paris, three radically chic media stars swept away centuries of strictures about what women should wear and how they should live. A new book unveils the other French Revolution.
A Nose DIVIDED
Legends are never made by playing it safe.
Friends of JUDY
For her fans of 30 years, Judy Geib is a jeweler's jeweler. For young designers, she's something rarer: a role model.
Anatomy of a Classic
A 63-year-old icon just got a face-lift. Can you tell?
This Old Thing? T&C Reviews: Barn Jackets
The rags-to-riches tale of how a humble workingman's staple got its high fashion glow-up.
Nellie Oleson, MODERN MUSE
The kids are in couture and the grown-ups are in oversize bows. When did things get so Freaky Friday?
Loromania!
A standard-bearer of quiet luxury finds itself unexpectedly tap dancing in the spotlight, embraced by American hypebeasts, Gstaad Guy, and Kendall Roy. Back in Milan, it's business as usual. There are 100 years to toast.
Steal the Show
How Broadway fell in love with celebrity producers.