How Luxury Creates Enduring Value in 2026
Episode 1: Products That Justify Ownership, Experiences That Restore Value
Last month, gold reached a new historic record. Silver and copper followed. As geopolitical tensions intensify and economic uncertainty deepens, investors have returned to what they have always trusted most.
Gold does not need an ad campaign– its value is understood. Luxury, meanwhile, enters 2026 in a more fragile position, with today much of the industry struggling to convert consumer desire into belief. Outside of a handful of exceptional houses and product categories, consumers are increasingly questioning what luxury truly offers them in an unstable world.
So the question is of course now not why gold is soaring, up 69% year-on-year: it’s why luxury doesn’t inspire the same type of confidence for consumers and investors today?
For recent decades, luxury thrived primarily as a system of aspiration. That model absolutely worked in a world defined by growth, optimism, and expanding consumption but now, the context’s shifting under our feet. We are entering a new era defined less by desire and more by proof of value.
In periods of instability, people look for things that feel undeniable. Gold performs well because it is tangible, finite, historically trusted, and ownable. The World Gold Council has long positioned it as a hedge not only against inflation, but against uncertainty itself– its very appeal lies in the fact that it exists outside all platforms, trends, narratives.
Luxury, by contrast, has become increasingly abstract, with prices rising faster than perceived substance for the majority of the industry. A notable exception is jewelry, particularly gold-based jewelry, with groups like Richemont benefitting from the fundamental truth that jewellery carries intrinsic value, and when paired with visible craft, materials and narrative, that value becomes emotionally resonant. Similarly, Maisons such as Hermès continue to thrive because their value equation of scarcity + craft + storytelling remains legible.
But other categories, from watches to leather goods and fashion, have struggled to maintain the same clarity. This is not because craftsmanship has disappeared – though, yes, several notable labor scandals in recent years haven’t helped – but because often brands today fail to articulate the meaning behind the ownership of their products.
In a world seeking stability, symbolism alone feels tenuous. This also comes during an era where we’re seeing an erosion of the idea of ownership itself. Across industries, consumers are told they no longer need to own things. Now ownership of even basics - such as a first home for young generations - are increasingly out of reach. In the increasingly digital economy, consumers are learning to be skeptical. “Subscription fatigue” is growing as people reassess recurring payments that offer little sense of control. They can rent, stream, subscribe but digital goods change, disappear, platforms change their rules or disappear altogether.
Against this backdrop, physical ownership is becoming emotionally charged again. It’s not unrelated that vinyl record sales are soaring due to Gen Z, the very same generation digitally underwater, or why physical novel sales are climbing even in the age of endless AI and e-readers.
Luxury should be uniquely positioned to respond – historically, it was the industry of permanence, right? Objects were made to last, to be repaired, to be passed down. Yet too often, brands have traded this emphasis on depth and legacy for short-term spectacle or micro-trends.
To rebuild belief, luxury must now rebalance around two inseparable forces:
01: PRODUCTS THAT JUSTIFY OWNERSHIP
The most compelling luxury products today are not the most extravagant, but the ones that clearly earn their place in everyday or ritualized moments. Yes, products can justify ownership from an investment perspective when brands communicate the craft, materials, and time that underpin their value. But objects that integrate into life are harder to dismiss, easier to justify, and ultimately more meaningful to own.
We see this in handcrafted leisure objects, in travel pieces designed as lifelong companions, or in fragrance reframed as a personal anchor to memory and routine. We see this when thinking of fashion garments that have not only everyday utility but are charged with an elevated emotional truth. In each case, ownership is more than symbolic alone.
02: EXPERIENCES THAT RESTORE VALUE TO PRODUCTS
When done well, experience does not replace the object– it restores its weight. Experience reframes how a product is encountered, understood, and valued, making ownership feel deliberate rather than impulsive.
These experiences extend beyond events to include environments, buying moments, rituals, and narratives that reveal the intelligence and human effort embedded within an object. By slowing down consumption, experience amplifies value rather than distracting from it.
Taken together, products that justify ownership + experiences that restore value form a single, reinforcing system. One anchors value in material reality; the other makes that value legible, felt, and believed.
This is the deceptively simple framework through which luxury can meaningfully evolve in 2026 – and it’s the same groundwork of our own exploration we’ll continue to share here in the weeks and months ahead.
A Note from Our Team
Looking to the year ahead, this renewed focus on real value and ownership marks a meaningful shift for our industry. It opens up new creative and strategic territory, from product innovation and portfolio thinking to far beyond.
At AL DENTE, we work with brands to explore how these ideas can translate into concrete actions, across products, experiences, and the narratives that connect them to culture. If this perspective resonates, feel free to reach out to us at contact@aldenteparis.com.
