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The New Face of Luxury – How the Meaning of Premium Is Evolving
Premium Is Dead, Long Live Premium
In the last article of our series, I talked about the importance of expressing premiumness through more than just stating quality. But what does it actually look like, and how are premiumness expressions evolving?
The old codes of premium – glossy finishes, exclusivity, high price – don’t always resonate today. If not handled right, flashy products can feel tacky, ostentatious, and inauthentic. But it’s not just about the visual cues – consumer expectations around “luxury” and “premium” are shifting, especially post-pandemic and in a values-driven, experience-focused culture.
What do premium and luxury look like in 2025? Regardless of category, to justify premium pricing, brands need to evolve with a new definition of value: one rooted in purpose, personalisation, and emotional meaning.
Luxury isn’t dying. It’s just changing clothes.
From External Signals to Internal Meaning
One can argue that luxury has always been about expressing yourself as someone special, but what “special” actually means is shifting. Rather than just wanting to appear rich, luxury and premium consumers are now looking to express other qualities about themselves. Consumers are moving from projecting status to seeking alignment with their identity, values, and lifestyle.
This becomes clear when contrasting traditional with more emerging signals of luxury.
In much of the 20th century and before, luxury was all about heritage, price, and scarcity, and expressed through visual cues like gold, gloss, or serif fonts. While these cues are still effective and relevant, they can (if not handled right) also make a product appear dated and irrelevant to modern living.
Instead, emerging signals of luxury embrace sustainability, transparency, personal relevance, and wellbeing. In a fast-consumption society where we can get hold of most things quite easily (whether it be the original or a Temu knock-off), true differentiation comes from expressing individual traits and deeply held beliefs.
In many ways, luxury in 2025 is far less about owning something impressive and more about feeling good about the choice.
Five Ways the Meaning of Premium is Changing
The shift becomes even clearer when digging a little deeper into individual qualities that make up a luxury experience, and how they are shifting.
a) From Material to Meaningful
Picture a high-end luxury villa, both a hundred years ago and now. What do you see?
In the past, high status was often expressed through a plethora of expensive possessions, and you could have justifiably expected a sitting room filled with figurines, expensive curtains, and tableware on display. Compare this to luxury in the 21st century, which is expressed through a far smaller number of individual statement pieces, often curated in minimalist spaces.
Luxury nowadays is less about stuff, and more about story.
Consumers don’t just want to cram their homes full of expensive items, and neither is it still in fashion to just turn over pieces every single season. Instead, they want depth – the question that defines a luxury item isn’t just how much it costs, but rather who made it, what it stands for, and what it supports.
b) From Showy to Subtle
In the past, luxury finishes were a question of scarcity. When only so much gold, satin, and purple dye exists in a local market, these things become a signal of wealth. Even pineapples used to be a status symbol in Europe, to the point that they were rented out for high society dinner parties.
In a time of almost limitless availability of products and finishes, it becomes harder to stand out by being flashy (and pineapples on your dinner table may just send a slightly different message nowadays). This results in cues of luxury pulling back, in some ways almost reversing: Premiumness becomes about quiet luxury and coded cues over big logos or overt signals. Curation becomes much more important than opulence.
c) From Scarcity to Access with Integrity
Scarcity used to always be a defining feature of luxury – you showed off your wealth and connections by owning objects that others couldn’t get their hands on. This differentiation becomes much harder in a society where almost anything can be bought and sold at the click of a button. Admittedly, scarcity in the form of limited runs still plays a role in luxury, but how can it truly elevate when at least knock-offs will always be available?
Premium doesn’t always mean hard to get – just hard to fake. The more copycats exist, the more an individual touch matters. Luxury brands today, whether they are digital-first brands or sustainable upstarts, feel premium through craftsmanship, curation, or ethical sourcing. This also means that shutting off availability artificially is less of a concern for them then demonstrating careful choices and meaningful partnerships and sourcing.
d) From Price to Experience
While luxury used to be a matter of cost, the emotional component now plays an even greater role than the price tag. What makes something premium is how it makes you feel – products and services that offer moments of indulgence, beauty, or reflection are far more likely to resonate in 2025 than flashy items alone.
Premium is being redefined through ritual, not just rareness. In a time of global turmoil and individual stressors, products and services that offer to connect us back with our emotions, centre us, and give us experiences outside of our day-to-day reality are much more likely to engage and justify a premium price point than those that just rely on luxury finishes alone.
e) From Global Symbols to Personal Signals
Luxury symbols used to be fairly universal – a Rolex was impressive regardless of who it was worn by. But in a time of increased access, luxury and premiumness are not simply a reflection of what you can buy, but how well it fits your personality and needs.
The rise of hyper-personalisation has been an interesting trend over the last few years, spanning from AI-curated skincare and local spirits to niche perfumery. Products delivering exactly what you need and want, and the ability to tailor key aspects to your heart’s content, have brought back the feeling of uniqueness luxury items used to express, and that has been lost in a time of over-availability.
In 2025, brands that speak to the individual feel far more premium than mass-market “luxury” names.
A Specific Example: Implications for FMCG & Alcohol Brands
For brands in categories like FMCG and alcohol, the evolving definition of luxury isn’t a threat – it’s a huge opportunity. These categories are uniquely positioned to deliver what we might call micro-premium moments – small but meaningful experiences that feel elevated, intentional, and worth savouring.
The new face of luxury doesn’t require a 200-year-old backstory or a thousand-pound price tag. What it does require is emotional relevance, aesthetic confidence, and sensory storytelling. And these are areas where brands can compete powerfully.
Packaging becomes a key asset – not just as a container, but as a signal of care, creativity, or desirability.
Copy and tone of voice shape how consumers feel about the product: is it a fun indulgence, a moment of calm, a conscious choice?
Context matters: products framed around gifting, hosting, or self-reward naturally carry greater perceived value—even when the product itself doesn’t change.
The most successful brands aren’t just upgrading the product – they’re upgrading the experience. And in a world where luxury is increasingly defined by how something makes you feel, that’s where the true premium lies.
The Role of Implicit Insight
With luxury executions getting even more varied and less well-defined, it becomes harder to spot luxury, and differentiate true luxury expressions from lesser executions. Luxury is a feeling, more than a simple copy & paste exercise of combining expensive materials. This is why in order to understand how well luxury is expressed, we need to dive deeper into intuitive perceptions and gut feelings.
In a time of increased financial pressures, consumers may say they want value, but their behaviours reveal a continued appetite for “worth it” choices, rooted in emotional and identity-driven triggers. Implicit research helps uncover what truly feels premium today – even when buyers can’t articulate it themselves.
When you understand the non-conscious mind, you stop chasing yesterday’s luxury – and start designing tomorrow’s.
NEXT STEPS... The new luxury isn’t about having more—it’s about meaning more.
Make sure you root your brand decisions in true meaning, rather than in flashy executions. This is the third part of a series exploring premiumisation and its implications on market research. If you’d like to find out more about how Mindlab can help you uncover and the psychology of premium, please get in touch.
This is the third part of a series by Mindlab’s Director of Research, Juliane Beard exploring premiumisation and its implications on market research. If you’d like to find out more about how Mindlab can help you uncover and the psychology of premium, please get in touch.
