Accessible luxury? What sounds contradictory may also be a uniquely risky selling proposition

I found myself thinking that modern luxury may be negotiating something fundamentally different from what it has historically stood for.

Luxury once derived power from distance. The great maisons of the world built emotional authority through scarcity, ritual, selective access and symbolic hierarchy. The dream mattered because it could not be easily touched. Luxury was never merely about products. It was about emotional separation from the ordinary. That architecture is now under pressure.

Over the last few years, I have increasingly noticed that luxury brands are struggling to balance two conflicting realities simultaneously: exclusivity and relevance. If these brands remain too distant, younger consumers tend to disconnect culturally. If they become too accessible, symbolic prestige slowly begins to erode. The Swatch-Audemars Piguet collaboration exemplifies that tension.

I do not believe consumers were standing in those queues simply because they wanted a watch. Most of them know the Swatch tie-up will never replace a true Audemars Piguet in terms of craftsmanship, rarity or collector value. What they were really there to buy was participation—in the codes, symbolism and theatre of a luxury world that has historically remained inaccessible to most people.

That distinction matters enormously and signals a larger shift in the psychology of luxury. While luxury has long monetized the human need for ownership of opulent items and lifestyles, today it increasingly monetizes transitory participation and proximity to luxury. I suspect this shift is closely linked to the K-shaped economy we are now living in.

At the very top of the pyramid, ultra-high-net-worth consumers continue moving towards quieter, more exclusive forms of luxury. In fact, uncertainty often strengthens extreme luxury because scarcity becomes even more valuable in polarized economies.

Beneath that sits a much larger aspirational audience that increasingly seeks emotional access without necessarily crossing the full economic barrier of ownership. Earlier generations were willing to wait years to ‘arrive’ in the world of luxury. But today’s consumers want cultural access right away.

Luxury brands clearly understand this. That is why collaborations are increasingly economic adaptation mechanisms. Some of these alliances still preserve and even expand brand mythology beautifully. Dior with Jordan and Louis Vuitton with Yayoi Kusama are great examples.

But when H&M collaborates with Versace or Balmain, or when Swatch joins hands with Omega or Audemars Piguet, the objective shifts from mythology expansion to symbolic compression.

Consumers who may never own the original luxury object suddenly gain access to fragments of its symbolism at a much lower threshold. This creates visibility and extraordinary social reach.

But it also raises a pertinent long-term question: how accessible can luxury become before familiarity begins weakening a top-end brand’s mystique?

A senior luxury retail executive in Europe once told me something I will never forget: “Luxury survives not because everyone can enter the room, but because not everyone can.” At the time, the statement sounded rather elitist, but today it feels strategically accurate.

This is also why I increasingly find the strategy of Hermès fascinating in the current luxury cycle. It continues to protect scarcity, ritual and controlled frustration with remarkable discipline. This suggests that it understands something many brands are still trying to negotiate: visibility and desirability are not always the same thing.

This does not necessarily mean that such collaborations are inherently damaging for the higher-end partner. Some of them may help younger audiences enter luxury ecosystems in meaningful ways and genuinely keep brands relevant in a rapidly changing attention economy.

But the luxury brands that survive the next decade may simply be the ones that understand exactly how much proximity they can afford before prestige begins dissolving into a mere participation prize.

The author is the founder of Luxury Connect LLP and Luxury Connect Business School.