Not For The Faint OF Taste

The momentous beginning of this blog starts with quite a…well, substantive, topic: luxury. How much of this is talked about in the present day — investors suggest buying LVMH, influencers parade Chanel as the be-all and end-all, and we now have a luxury Prada basketball for $720.

While it’s nice to make money off money (literally), have a nice bag, or own a collectible item, there’s something deeper behind the choice to do so. This isn’t yet another critique of the luxury market — we’re aiming to go beyond that.

Prada recently presented its Spring/Summer 2026 menswear collection, featuring Kohlapuri slippers: ethnic Indian T-strap sandals made from sun-dried leather. They received a fair amount of backlash for violating GI rights (these slippers do carry a Geographical Indication tag) and for cultural appropriation without adequate acknowledgment of the origin.

As expected, they issued a lukewarm statement about their commitment to responsible practices and other humdrum sentiments, and left it at that. 

But here’s the thing: if this episode hadn’t happened, would anyone outside of their place of origin have heard of them? Not really — unless they’d visited and picked up a pair. I wore these to university every day as a penny-pinching student. And so many still do, regardless of the extent of their purse strings, simply because the craftsmanship and design hold their own. 

And that’s the point: taste is experience, sensation; it demands to be felt. Buying directly from a local artisan with centuries of leathercraft behind them, and buying a luxury good that just happens to be made in the same way — those are two very different things. The charm of owning something created through a unique, time-honoured technique is lost when it’s repackaged without meaning. That charm — that story of how you ended up with those sandals — is what sets apart what is tasteful from what is merely luxurious.

The word aesthetic is everywhere now: the old-money, behind-closed-doors style; dressing and putting on red lipstick like a ‘Parisian’ girl; wearing beige and neutrals. But do you even like beige? Think about it — how many people name beige as their favourite colour? And yet beige is becoming the centrepiece of most wardrobes, and you can spot at least five people wearing it on your way to the grocery store.

True luxury isn’t about acquisition. It’s about comprehension. Its easy to find emulators, but rare, a ‘luxury’, to find real discernment. A person of taste can appreciate an Hermès Kelly just as well as a handcrafted leather bag from a small village — but for the right reasons. Someone who hasn’t honed that quality will choose the former simply as a means of access: possession of something rare, costly, or prestigious.

Taste can exist without luxury. Luxury without taste often rings hollow.

It’s not simply about owning the best, it’s about recognizing the best when no one else is watching.

That’s the movement we’re trying to spark here — on this blog, and beyond. To not just own beautiful things, but to know why they are beautiful — and to live with discernment, elegance, and depth.