Silent Luxury

An in-depth conversation with Eva Winterer, the magazine's publisher on the structural disruption in the luxury industry, and why the next decade will be shaped not by objects, but by relationships.

Let's begin with the core concept. What does appreciation mean in this context – and why is it more than an ethical category?

Eva Winterer: Appreciation is first and foremost a form of recognition. It makes visible what endures and gives dignity to a person, a product, or a place. This is precisely where Silent Luxury begins. We engage with origin, knowledge, and responsibility – the dimensions that shape the true value of an outcome.

But let me be precise about why this isn't mere sentimentality. Appreciation is an economic category. It determines what will endure in the long term and what won't. Look at how consumer behavior is changing: Generation Z and younger Millennials are increasingly asking about origin, production conditions, and material cycles. This is no longer a moral ornament but an economic factor that shifts market shares.

Take the crisis of the major conglomerates. LVMH reported declining figures in certain segments for the first time in years in 2024. Kering is struggling with Gucci. This isn't just due to macroeconomic factors or China. It's also because a business model based on volume, visibility, and rapid rotation is reaching its limits. In this context, appreciation is the counter-program: it doesn't ask about the next drop, but about what remains.

You're speaking of a structural problem. Can you be more specific?

Winterer: The luxury industry has changed radically over the past three decades. Ateliers have become corporations, masterpieces have become product lines, customers have become consumers. This industrialization was economically successful – but it created a void. The emotional and cultural connection that once distinguished luxury has been replaced by marketing narratives.

Now we're experiencing a counter-movement. Not as a trend, but as a structural shift. Independent brands are growing disproportionately because they build a different relationship with their customers. Loro Piana – before it joined LVMH – is a prime example. Or look at Brunello Cucinelli, who consciously grows slowly and refuses to accelerate the business. This isn't a renunciation of success, but an alternative model.

Silent Luxury sees itself as the editorial counterpart to this development. We don't talk about brands that define their identity through campaigns, but about those who prove it through actions.

You've used the term "intrinsic value." How does this become visible – and how do you distinguish it from market value?

Winterer: To put it pointedly: we're interested in intrinsic value, not the price tag. A finished product is always the result of many interconnected processes – material selection, design, artisanal precision, economic thinking, cultural context. We show these connections and make visible how decisions become quality.

Let me illustrate this with a concrete example. When we talk about a watch, we can choose different approaches: technological – what innovation is in the movement? Economic – how does the brand position itself in the market? Cultural – what story does the design tell? Each perspective opens a different dimension of value.

Intrinsic value manifests itself in the sum of these decisions. A Patek Philippe watch is valuable because it's based on 180 years of experience, because it requires up to two years of production time, because it can last for generations. This isn't romantic, it's rationally calculable. Market value – what's paid on the secondary market – only partially reflects this. It's volatile, speculative, often irrational.

Our task as a magazine is to make these internal structures visible. Not as justification for prices, but as a cartography of quality.

How do you bridge to luxury – a term historically strongly associated with price and status?

Winterer: For me, luxury is not an object but a relationship. A form of engagement with things, places, and people. And especially now, when consumption cycles are accelerating, we need to return to depth, duration, and responsibility.

Georg Simmel recognized as early as 1900 that luxury is not a property of objects but a social category that manifests itself in relationships. What he described then applies even more today: luxury doesn't arise through possession but through the way we relate to things.

This has practical implications. Look at the secondary market for luxury goods – Vestiaire Collective, The RealReal, Rebag. These platforms are growing double-digit because they enable a new relationship with luxury. Not "own and discard," but "own, care for, pass on." This is luxury as circulation of values, not as accumulation.

Or take hospitality. A hotel like Borgo La Petraia in Cilento, south of Salerno, is luxurious because it doesn't sell services but embodies an attitude. The materials come from the region, the architecture respects the environment, the hosts know their guests' names. This can't be scaled, replicated, or industrialized. That's exactly what makes it valuable.

Which values support this understanding – and how do they differ from the values the luxury industry has communicated so far?

Winterer: Time, responsibility, and consciousness. These aren't marketing terms but structural parameters.

Time: The luxury industry has been working against time for decades. Six collections per year, fast fashion as an accelerator, permanent novelties as a sales argument. But time is the scarcest resource in luxury. A Hermès saddle requires 18 hours of manual work. Good cheese needs months of aging. A forest from which sustainable wood comes grows over generations.

The paradox: while brands communicate "heritage," they operate according to principles of speed. We see this in product cycles, overproduction, the constant search for the next hype. Silent Luxury sets a different time economy against this: permanence.

Responsibility: This has become a buzzword, but let me be concrete. Responsibility means bearing the consequences of one's own decisions – ecologically, socially, economically. This affects the entire value chain.

Look at the textile industry. The Boston Consulting Group has quantified that textile waste worth $150 billion is generated annually that isn't reused. A quarter of that would be enough to supply the 30 largest fashion houses with material. We don't have a resource problem, we have a business model problem.

Brands like ECOALF – about which we recently spoke with founder Javier Goyeneche – show that it can be done differently. 684 different fabrics from waste materials, a foundation working with 5,000 fishermen, a company in the top 5% of B Corps. This is responsibility as operational reality, not as a CSR report.

Consciousness: This sounds abstract but is measurable. Consciousness means making informed decisions. For consumers: What am I buying, why, and what are the alternatives? For brands: What narratives are we spreading, and are they aligned with our actions?

The dissonance between communication and action is the biggest credibility problem in the luxury industry. Brands talk about sustainability while simultaneously producing millions of unsold pieces that are destroyed. They talk about exclusivity and flood the market with logoware. These contradictions are becoming increasingly visible – and increasingly penalized.

You've spoken several times about disruption. Where is the greatest movement currently occurring – in products, in business models, or elsewhere?

Winterer: In communication itself. We're experiencing a disruption that's less technological than cultural. Communication loses its mediating role when it only broadcasts. We need to learn to listen again – in companies, media, politics.

For me, disruption means rethinking dialogue. Brands and media don't stand on different sides but share responsibility for what they put into the world.

Let me be more precise. The classic media landscape – fashion magazines dependent on advertising – is under pressure. Vogue has massively reduced staff in recent years. Condé Nast is struggling with declining advertising revenue. This isn't just due to digitalization but to a fundamental credibility problem. When editorial content can no longer be distinguished from advertising, it loses its function.

At the same time, new formats are emerging. Brand publishing – brands become publishers producing their own content. Hermès has been doing this for years with Petit h and its exhibitions. Bottega Veneta began under Daniel Lee to develop its own cultural language that goes far beyond fashion.

So the movement isn't happening in products – a good shoe has always been a good shoe – but in the way we talk about products, how we contextualize them, how we create meaning.

Silent Luxury locates itself in this interstice. We're not a classic magazine that sells advertising space. We're also not a brand extension. We're an independent editorial project that gives brands, places, and people a stage – but only if they have something to say.

You mentioned responsibility in language. How does this manifest concretely?

Winterer: Absolutely. Language is our sharpest tool. It can connect or divide. In a time when much polarizes, we need a language that provides orientation. Precise, respectful, not whitewashing, but constructive. We're working to understand language again as a quality factor – as a means that creates trust.

This concerns several levels. First, the semantic: What terms do we use? "Sustainability" has become so diluted that it barely has any meaning anymore. Every brand is sustainable, every product eco-friendly, every initiative purpose-driven. This is linguistic inflation.

We therefore use more precise terms. Instead of "sustainable," we speak of circular economy, material origin, longevity. Instead of "quality," we describe what it consists of: What craftsmanship? What materials? What processing?

Then the rhetorical level: How do we tell stories? Most luxury brands work with superlativism. "The best," "the most exclusive," "the most innovative." This is hype language that says nothing. We try to work descriptively rather than evaluatively. Not "the best hotel in Tuscany," but "a hotel that strengthens regional economic cycles by working exclusively with local producers."

Finally, the ethical level: Responsibility in language also means not glossing over things. If a brand has problems – and which doesn't? – it should be talked about. Transparency isn't weakness but strength.

This distinguishes us from classic brand journalism. We're not a PR platform. When we write about a brand, it's because they're achieving something that deserves visibility. But this visibility isn't a favor, it's recognition.

How is this attitude reflected in your subject areas?

Winterer: Our sections like Creation, Spaces, Senses, or Movers represent quality of life in different forms. We talk about food and region, about well living and hospitality – not as lifestyle, but as systems of coexistence. Whether an agricultural business, a hotel, or a manufactory: everywhere it's about the same fundamental question – how quality emerges, is passed on, and is preserved.

Let me make this concrete through the sections, because each has a specific function:

Creation follows the ideas, decisions, and details that give products their expression. This is the core of design – not as aesthetic ornament but as a problem-solving process. When we write about a piece of furniture, it's not about "beautiful design" but about the decisions that led to its form. Which material was chosen and why? Which production technique enables this durability? How does the object fit into its context of use?

Economy shows economic thinking in transition. Here we talk about business models, value chains, market dynamics. Not as abstract economics but as concrete decisions. The series on the Swiss watch industry – "Time Under Pressure" – is an example. We analyze how 39% US tariffs shift entire supply chains, which brands profit from this and which come under pressure.

Essence opens space for reflection on quality, time, and the attitude behind the visible. This is the philosophical section, but not in a vacuum. When we talk about time, it's in the context of production cycles. When we talk about values, it's in relation to corporate decisions.

Movers connects people, ideas, and technologies that enable change. These aren't portraits of successful CEOs but conversations with those who change systems. Javier Goyeneche from ECOALF, who sold his first brand because he could no longer support the system. Dalma Turgut from Otto Tiles, who translates traditional Turkish craftsmanship into contemporary design.

Senses shows how quality translates into sound, texture, scent, and taste. This isn't food porn or lifestyle aesthetics but an analysis of the sensory dimension of quality. How do you taste terroir? How do you hear manual work? How does naturally tanned leather feel different from industrially treated leather?

Spaces deals with designed places and their effect. Architecture as relational space, not as object. The Vigilius Mountain Resort at 1,500 meters – larch wood, glass, silver quartzite, clay, water – isn't simply a hotel but a study of how materials create atmosphere.

Verified makes origin, attitude, and quality visible. This is our fact-checking section. Here we talk about certifications, supply chains, transparency. Not as a moral finger-wagging but as information that enables decisions.

The structure is deliberately non-linear. A product can appear in multiple sections – as technological innovation in Creation, as economic model in Economy, as sensory experience in Senses. This multi-perspectivity is the counter-program to one-dimensional brand journalism.

You've described Silent Luxury as an "editorial counterpart" to industrial luxury production. How do you position yourself long-term – as a magazine, as a platform, as something else?

Winterer: We're a hybrid. A magazine that publishes. A platform that enables relationships. An intellectual project that conducts discourses.

The classic distinction between content and commerce, between editorial and brand, between magazine and agency is becoming obsolete. We are all of these and none of them exclusively.

Concretely: Silent Luxury is the magazine. Silent Communications – which I operate in parallel – is the strategic boutique agency that accompanies brands in their communication. The two are separate, but they share a philosophy.

Long-term, we see ourselves as intellectual infrastructure for a new luxury economy. We want to be that place where the relevant conversations are conducted. Not as gatekeeper, but as catalyst.

This also means: we grow consciously slowly. No investors, no scaling pressures, no exit strategy. We finance ourselves through long-term content partnerships with brands that share our values. No banner advertising, no affiliate links, no clickbait.

This independence isn't an end in itself but a prerequisite for credibility. We can only report critically if we're economically independent. We can only practice appreciation if we experience it ourselves – from readers, from partners, from the industry.

Finally: Where do you see Silent Luxury in five years?

Winterer: We work with a strategic framework oriented to developmental logics, not rigid timelines. This differs fundamentally from classic five-year plans driven by scaling and growth metrics.

Our strategy is based on three pillars: deepening, networking, continuity. Deepening means continuously increasing the quality of our content and opening up new thematic dimensions. Networking means building a community that doesn't just consume this kind of communication but co-creates it. Continuity means establishing long-term partnerships with brands that share our values and understand that relationships are more valuable than campaigns.

We didn't set out to become the biggest or fastest magazine. We want to be the most relevant – for those who take quality seriously.

This means: we will continue to publish, continue to enter partnerships, continue to conduct discourses. Perhaps new formats will emerge – podcasts, events, collaborations. Perhaps we'll stick to the core: profound stories about the things that remain.

What I can say with certainty: in five years, the luxury industry will look different than today. Consolidation will increase, independents will become stronger, consumers will become more informed. Silent Luxury wants to be part of this transformation – not as an observer, but as an active participant.

We believe in the power of stories. In the people behind the brands. In craftsmanship, values, and long-term relationships. This isn't nostalgia, it's a prognosis.

The future of luxury isn't louder, faster, bigger. It's more conscious, slower, deeper. That's exactly where we position ourselves.