BARONS ARE BACK IN STYLE

(Published in INDEX MAGAZINE)

There are some things nobody needs to see in this lifetime and Jeffrey Bezos sitting front row at Paris Fashion Week ranks among the absolute worst.

In the year of Our Lord 2026, Bezos holds the title of third richest man in the world. He is the executive Chair of Amazon, Blue Origin’s resident space cowboy, and the premier bald-headed mascot for the billionaire class at its most obscene. But he has recently taken up a new pastime. When he isn’t busy having his nuptials protested, or laying off hundreds of hardworking journalists, he’s become quite the aspiring fashionista. It’s a uniquely grotesque thing to watch—the rebirth of a Gilded Age Robber Baron.    

Bezos is a lot like a teenager who, after finding 100 dollars on the sidewalk, struts into school the next day dripped out in a mismatched melange of PacSun, Zumiez, and Hot Topic. The only difference in Bezos’ case is that his average fits cost tens of thousands of dollars. For the price of an Amazon warehouse worker’s yearly salary, Bezos has managed to accomplish a look that can only be described as hype beast meets Lex Luthor: a monochrome monstrosity consisting of a long gray blazer, fine knit sweater, tight gray jeans, and a pair of Celine sneakers. You start to almost feel sorry for the sneakers.

Meanwhile, Jefferey’s new wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, has taken the concept of mob wife to new extremes, frequently stepping out in archival Galliano and vintage Versace. That the resulting fits are so outrageously garish is an honest-to-God feat—especially considering her latest stylist is none other than fashion architect Law Roach. If this wasn’t nauseating enough, Sánchez was also spotted cozying up to fashion’s perennial empress, Anna Wintour. It’s true that money can’t buy taste, but apparently it can still buy you a coterie of fashion-forward suckups.

The Bezos’ assault on Paris Fashion Week isn’t an isolated incident. Over the last few years, we have also watched a metamorphosis of the real-life man-lizard, Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), has been quietly transitioning from a relentlessly clowned tech bro to a regular Silicon Valley Roganite, now sporting gold chains, oversized t-shirts, and a curly broccoli haircut envied by middle schoolers across the nation. At Prada’s FW26 show, a pasty Zuckerberg was even spotted front row: another stomach-turning attempt at personal style, this time from the world’s second richest person. 

As the masses are restructuring their wardrobes around new buzzy ideals like “Quiet Luxury" the world’s richest are doing the exact opposite. It’s decidedly tacky, but far from new. If anything, it is a renaissance. 

In the late 19th century, The United States saw an explosion of new factories, steel mills, and railroads. Rapid industrialization gave rise to an entirely new class of plutocrats— men so monstrously wealthy that it took investigative journalists decades to uncover the full extent of their abuses. Industrialists John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie regularly leveraged vast personal fortunes to sway prominent politicians. Starting to sound familiar? 

But it wasn’t all dubious business. These aristocrats were firm adherents in the age old maxim: Work hard, play hard (minus the work hard part). While the majority of Americans lived in extreme poverty, tycoons built sprawling mansions, furnishing them with suites of imported (often gold-leafed) appliances. They dined on lobsters, duck, steaks, and green turtle soup. In describing the spending habits of these 19th century oligarchs, sociologist Thorstein Veblen coined the oh-so fitting term, "conspicuous consumption.” 

The tradition of constant one-upsmanship soon became a standard. Super-rich families used lavish costume parties as opportunities to publicly outdo one another, literally competing among themselves to pimp out their estates. The results were often totally mismatched eyesores with little to no cohesion—not so far removed from the vulgar blemish that is Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound. 

Here lies the clearest similarity between the barons of old and the modern clique of Bezoses and Zuckerbergs. They are completely tasteless. They have no concept of style beyond a dim understanding that there is value in whatever is most expensive. This characterization of the uberrich is so ingrained in culture that we hardly blinked when it reemerged.

In past years, the dominant philosophy surrounding the ultra-rich has actually been to praise their “frugality.” Leagues of influencers loved to point at Zuckerberg wearing slouchy, ill-fitting t-shirts as evidence that his success was somehow born of responsible spending and not a 100,000 dollar loan from his father. One can only wonder if these same influencers have changed their tune at the sight of Zuck’s newest bling: a glittering gold chain sculpted in the shape of Meta’s mobius strip logo. 

Gone are the days when Warren Buffet welcomed endless praise for simply eating at McDonalds. It seems the script has fully flipped. The rich are not hiding anymore. If anything, it’s as if they want all eyes on them. As if amassing more wealth than the entire bottom 95% of America combined wasn’t bad enough, billionaires also want to be cool. It's their final frontier, the last hurdle, the insurmountable peak that has frustrated Elon Musk-types to no end.

 They want to be movie stars. They want to be rockstars. They just want to be “one of the boys.” In a world dictated by optics, it’s clear that the billionaires are feeling the pressure be seen as anything other than poster boys for unchecked avarice. This has resulted in a casual bromance with the president, or a noxious, red-pilled dissent into the manosphere. The glittering world of high fashion seems like the last place these alpha-wannabes would want to be seen, but it is nevertheless their latest obsession.   

There’s no denying that luxury fashion has always been popular, but it wasn’t until recently that you could walk down the street and see a packed bar ravenously tuned into the latest Dior runway. Despite declining sales, fashion has undeniably become a foremost fascination for billionaires and ordinary people alike. It’s a real paradox. Fewer people are actually buying, yet there are more eyes on the fashion industry than ever before. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, major brands shifted their marketing into the digital space, which, coupled with the advent of the fit-check, birthed a deeply engaged worldwide audience. High fashion essentially embodies the epitome of modern spectacle: a supreme convalescence of glamor, beauty, sex, and scandal. Runways have increasingly employed multimodal approaches, featuring live music, large-scale architectural projects and an ever-swirling constellation of celebrities, socialites, and politicians. It’s no wonder billionaires are desperate to get in on the action. 

What’s distinctly concerning is the fashion world’s capitulation to new age barons. This is a new era of capitalism. Billionaires are rarely lauded, certainly not by the unsatisfied scores of Gen Z, who have been known to celebrate even grisly submarine implosions. It’s downright irresponsible for the arbiters of style to disregard the next generation that is closely watching their every move. Young fashion-heads still long for a more romantic era of fashion— an era that arguably came to a close with the death of the late Valentino. 

With the exception of a few legacy brands such as Chanel and Ralph Lauren, most houses now fall under one of two conglomerates: LVMH and Kering. The oligopic structure favors a ruthless, profit-based model that can see a creative director fired after only one collection. There’s cut-throat and there’s desperate. Amidst rumours of an imminent Conde Nast buyout, watching Anna Wintour schmooze with the trashiest billionaire couple alive looks more like desperation than glamor. 

So who are young fashion-heads to turn to when the billionaires have somehow managed to make even Jonathan Anderson’s Dior uncool? Who gives the next generation of sartorial aspirants hope? To answer this question, it might be time to look ‘off-piste.’ Instead of demanding that heritage brands abandon their stale billionaire-centric business models, it’s worth considering emerging designers who have already carved out their own lane. Designers like Raul Lopez, who didn’t attend Parsons or Central Saint Martins, and instead built a brand that frequently pays homage to immigrant communities, LGBTQ and sex workers. Designers like Willy Chavarria, who never eschews politics and is all the flyer for it. 

We can only hope that designers like these will take one look at the supervillains cosplaying in couture and treat them accordingly: as parasites, not patrons.