Montecito-core: The Luxury Look of Wellness
For $250,000, a stylist can help you select clothes based on "energy work and future-self meditation."
In the 1980s, you could go to a department store and have your “colors” “done.” A consultant would sit with you and tell you if you were an autumn, winter, summer, or spring. The idea was that everyone’s natural colors aligned with a season and each season aligned with a color palette. Armed with their seasons, women could then do some serious damage at Macy’s or wherever in the prescribed palette. It was a great way to get people to come into a store and buy whole new wardrobes, including cosmetics.
The book that popularized this idea, Color Me Beautiful by Carole Jackson, came out in 1980. By the nineties this practice had fallen out of fashion. As it turned out, people didn’t like feeling like they couldn’t wear, say, black because they were “a spring.” But, the eighties are back and wellness is in, and wardrobe consultants have a new way of luring customers to clothing. “Quantum Style” is a package offered by stylist Nicole Pollard Bayme that, The Hollywood Reporter explains, “consists of a yearlong series of one-on-one monthly sessions that delve into wardrobe design and fashion styling, paired with energy work and future-self meditation.”
“What we wear and the colors we put on are an energetic manifestation,” Bayme tells THR, explaining the name origin of Quantum Style. “When you shop and style from a heart-centered place, you attract and dance with the frequency of the pieces you’re wearing. My clients are dressing for the world stage, and I help them discover how they can show up authentically with their full inner purpose of who they want to be reflected in what they wear. So when they look in the mirror, it’s healing; they are no longer at odds with their reflection. When somebody is at this level, typically they’re looking to self-actualize in their fashion, too.”
The cost of one year of Bayme’s services: $250,000.
It’s just one more manifestation (always manifesting) of the fusion of fashion, wellness, and wealth. As wellness became a trend, it became a luxury commodity. And as it became a luxury commodity, the fashion industry started circling it like vultures. Since even rich people are getting bored by what fashion has to offer, the industry has to find new ways to get people to buy. And convincing people that certain clothing has a spiritual benefit doesn’t seem like a bad way to do that. It preys on our fears that we are not just physically incomplete without certain items, but also promotes the idea that buying stuff can fill the same hole in our lives as, say, religion.
Wellness x fashion is everywhere these days. Dior is hosting a wellness retreat in April where guests will be privy to a “[n]utritionist and functional medicine expert [who] will be on hand for individual consultations for your relationship with food, mindfulness, and inner well-being.” According to the Robb Report, the goal of the experience is for guests “to leave feeling refreshed and empowered.” Erin Walsh, Anne Hathaway’s stylist who also writes a Substack newsletter, has talked of ”dopamine dressing … leaning into clothes that spark feelings of joy, happiness and positive options.” Stylist Britt Theodora has trademarked “energy styling,” which The Hollywood Reporter describes as “color-theory focused.” Wellness has also become a beat for Vogue and the Business of Fashion.
Alo Yoga, founded in 2007, has been doing this kind of thing for nearly 20 years. Alo portends to not just be a yoga-wear brand, it has also promised to “[take] the consciousness from practice on the mat and [put] it into the practice of life.” It now sells supplements, fitness classes, and, for $210, a Tiger’s Eye Mala Necklace “intended to help manifest grounding and balance.” The necklace has a gold-plated pendant that says “be here” on one side and “alo” on the other, along with a “circle of precious stones, each prayer-blessed during assembly by our all-female team of Tibetan artisans.”
Earlier in Back Row:
“It’s the eighties, which was about total consumerism, but packaged as this new-millennium spiritual consumerism,” said Liz Goldwyn, who writes the STARF*CKER newsletter, where she’s been covering the elite wellness scene in Hollywood. “What is really is across the board is this return to greed and excess, but we’re just pretending that it’s about manifesting.”
Goldwyn pointed out that programs like quantum styling are another example of “spiritual materialism” — the whole world Mike White skewers in White Lotus.
“It’s the way things are packaged and sold. We don’t wanna go to an ashram in India or to Tibet to meditate with the monks, we want, ‘Can you just sell me a workshop for $14,000 that I can attend in my Alo clothes for a weekend?'“ she said. “They can’t go to those workshops in Gap clothing, they need The Row, Jenni Kayne, and Hermès.”
As Goldwyn described this look, I could picture it instantly, this aesthetic of luxury wellness. It’s Meghan Markle in the kitchen Netflix rented her in Montecito looking the most effortful version of effortless in neutral linen, earth-toned knits, button-down shirts, and hiking leggings. It’s a gauzy Chloé dress. It’s Zimmerman. It’s slouchy striped sweaters. It’s this little purse for your face serum. It’s a dry, rocky, landscape with wildflowers overlooking the sea, boxy architecture, and huge rectangular pools. I suggested to Goldwyn we call it “Montecito-core,” this Alo-fied version of stealth wealth, this designer raffia tote bag version of life. (I can’t speak for Goldwyn but, personally, I can’t help but like this look.)
As Goldwyn put it: “It’s very California, like, ‘I’m really casual, I just came from my pilates class,’ with subtle gold jewelry and cashmere sweatpants and everything is $3,000.”
If you look at the images of quantum styling in The Hollywood Reporter story, it’s this vibe — peach, tan, navy, ivory, white, orange, many shades of brown. But most of all, it’s expensive. Bayme’s Birkin bag is pictured. She said, “I’m buying vintage haute couture for a Forbes list client, and one Chanel dress can be $30,000. Today, I sold a $22,000 Gabriela Hearst crocodile bag that another client will carry for the rest of her life and pass down as a legacy. When she wore it, she felt like she was home. That’s my goal.”
Or she’ll wear it until the next spiritual wardrobe fad comes along. One of the two.
Loose Threads
The John Galliano Dior couture dress Melania wore on the cover of Vogue and to wed Donald Trump is on eBay for $45,000 or best offer. Liana Statenstein reports in Neverworns: “The seller said she was a friend of one of Melania’s friends who brokered the deal so she could buy it from Mrs. Trump. She purchased it for $70,000 for her own wedding back in 2011.”
As expected, Loewe confirmed the appointment of former Proenza Schouler designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez as creative directors, replacing Jonathan Anderson. Cue some very safe quotes about respecting the “codes of the house” and so forth. They start April 7.
Mugler has a new creative director: Miguel Castro Freitas, who leaves Sportmax to take the job. After graduating Central Saint Martins in 2004, he was “handpicked,” per Vogue Business, by Galliano to work at Dior.
Chanel is really pushing these new 25 bags, with a campaign featuring Jennie and Dua Lipa. Wonder what they cost!
Disney’s Snow White remake opened to “near-disastrous” box office numbers, pulling in $86.1 million worldwide on a budget of $270 million plus another $100 million in marketing costs. The well-covered controversies associated with this movie aside, who is the audience for a remake of a kids’ movie that originally came out in 1937?? Why isn’t Disney coming up with, like, a new mermaid?
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Is it just me? Or is that the most hideous wedding garment ever made?
Girl I will never be Montecito core! My neutral is leopard print and it’s Hawaiian aloha vibes all the way 😂 if I wore khaki pants and a white shirt you’d need to have me committed