Barragán Puts the GHB in Quiet Luxury

For a collection titled “Quiet Luxury,” the Barragán SS24 show was sorely lacking in monochromes and bland knits. The austere TikTok trend is a sort of aspirational version of normcore that, along with “old money,” marks Gen-Z’s obsession with wealth-signaling and self-labeling to feed questionable shopping habits. It’s the effect of the latter that Victor Barragán addresses season after season.

At Mexico City’s Felipe Ángeles Airport, as September’s European shows found houses like Gucci pivoting to understated basics, chasing the quiet luxury buzz, the Mexican-American fashion heretic piled on the layers to unpack the political and sartorial influence of the West on the places most exploited by the trend cycle’s return. On the (literal) runway, jetsetters were replaced by models clad in camo, national flags, and hammers and sickles. Patches reading “CANCELLED TWICE” and jumbled religious symbolism brought a new meaning to logomania, while reinvented matador costumes were accessorized with GHB dose timer belts, SFX scars, and thorned crowns. It’s an unbound bloodbath, and we’re lapping it up.