Trapped in the Illusion of Luxury
Note: This article is the personal opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of the CNBCIndonesia.com editorial team.
In the contemporary digital era, where life’s shop window is freely and massively displayed on social media, standards of success often undergo terrifying distortion. Social validation is frequently no longer measured by intellectual contribution, moral integrity, or real work, but rather by designer logos stretched across one’s chest, limited-edition shoes wrapping one’s feet, or an exotic leather bag worth hundreds of millions of rupiah dangling from one’s hand.
The craze for luxury fashion brands is no longer the exclusive domain of the jet set, aristocrats, or conglomerates. Like an epidemic, this obsession with luxury has infected all layers of society, from young executives in Jakarta’s Sudirman district to students who have only just begun university.
What is more concerning is the irrational sacrifice that accompanies it. Not a few individuals are willing to forgo future funds, liquidate emergency savings, abstain from essential needs for months, or worse still, become trapped in the mire of consumer debt such as credit cards and PayLater features, all for a single branded item.
These flawed cognitive decisions are driven by the fear of missing out (FOMO) and the need to conform to the narrative of social media algorithms that continuously dictate the definition of “success” and “happiness”.
Yet behind the sparkle of boutique chandeliers in elite shopping centres and dazzling advertising campaigns starring world celebrities, there lies a financial and spiritual reality that is often deliberately obscured.
Let us dissect this critically and honestly: when we spend tens or even hundreds of millions of rupiah, are we truly buying quality of life, or merely paying an excessively expensive tariff for a hollow pride that is actually eroding the foundations of our true wealth?
The Real Purpose Behind the Creation of Luxury Brands
To dismantle this illusion, the first thing that must be understood is that luxury fashion brands were never designed to meet humanity’s basic need for clothing. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, clothing serves to protect the body. But in the luxury fashion business model, clothing is transformed into a tool of social communication. The primary aim of this industry is to create artificial scarcity and an illusion of exclusivity.
In behavioural economics, luxury goods are often classified as Veblen Goods — an anomaly in which demand actually rises as prices increase, because the high price directly boosts the wearer’s prestige.
These brands systematically build narratives of history, heritage, and elite caste to create firm lines of demarcation from mass-market products. Strategically, they are not actually selling bags, shoes, or clothes; they are selling “entry tickets” into a particular social class.
By setting prices as high as possible — often exceeding any functional logic — they restrict accessibility. The item is then transformed from mere body covering into a symbol of success that screams in silence.
When you wear their products, the message the industry wishes to convey to onlookers is not “I am wearing finely stitched, high-quality clothing”, but rather “I possess wealth that most people do not”.
This industry cleverly, systematically, and ruthlessly exploits humanity’s deepest insecurities — the need to be recognised, respected, and validated — in order to reap obscene profits.
Unveiling the Anatomy of Price: What Are You Actually Paying For?
Many consumers make biased financial decisions by assuming that a price of hundreds of millions of rupiah automatically corresponds to unrivalled material quality or durability.
Within the framework of financial literacy and wealth management, this assumption is a form of cognitive illusion. The facts show that gross margins for luxury goods from the giant fashion conglomerates often sit at 70% to 85%.
When you consciously swipe your debit or credit card to pay Rp 50,000,000 for a designer bag, you need to dissect the price. Here are the components of the final price you are actually funding:
Actual Production Cost (Materials and Labour): This functional component often ranges from just 10% to a maximum of 20% of the final price. A bag sold for Rp 50,000,000 may cost less than Rp 5,000,000 to Rp 7,000,000 to produce in a factory or artisan workshop, even using the finest quality leather.
Marketing and Brand Retention Costs: This is the first giant component. Your money funds aggressive global marketing campaigns, digital billboard rentals in the world’s metropolitan centres, fashion shows costing millions of dollars, and fees of billions of rupiah for celebrities and influencers appointed as brand ambassadors. You are voluntarily paying for them to keep advertising.
Luxury Retail Operational Costs: Luxury goods require equally luxurious spatial presentation. Through the price of the goods you buy, you bear the cost of boutique rentals in the world’s most expensive and elite real estate locations — such as the Champs-Élysées in Paris, Ginza in Tokyo, 5th Avenue in New York, or New Bond Street in London — as well as the stunning marble-clad interior designs of these stores.
The “Prestige Tax” (Company Net Profit): This is the killer portion of the price you pay. The remaining margin goes straight into the net profit of the fashion conglomerates to support their share valuations on the stock exchange. Essentially, you are draining your own hard-earned assets to subsidise and multiply the wealth of the trillionaire owners of these brands.
Needs vs Wants: The Prestige Trap in Financial Planning
From the perspective of rational financial planning, one must possess a sharp cognitive filter to dissect daily spending and separate necessity from desire. Well-stitched clothing made of breathable material, structurally durable and appropriate for work, is an absolute necessity.
However, a standard cotton shirt with a small designer monogram on the chest that causes the price to leap five to ten times above its fair value is purely a desire driven by prestige.
Disciplined use of a personal money tracker often exposes this bitter truth at the end of the month: the biggest budget leaks in modern society rarely lie in soaring prices of basic necessities, but are hidden in the swelling of lifestyle spending (lifestyle creep).
As income rises, people psychologically feel the need to upgrade their lifestyle to reflect their new status. This is exacerbated by the Diderot Effect, in which the purchase of one luxury item (say, a designer bag) triggers a chain of further luxury purchases (matching shoes, a designer wallet, branded clothing) so that everything looks coordinated and of the same “class”.
Consumers are often trapped in the delusion that they need to prove themselves, wish to showcase their career trajectory, or simply want their existence acknowledged by their social circle. The saddest irony of this situation is that they are willing to trade future financial stability, sacrifice their children’s education funds, and pawn their peace of mind in order to impress people who, in reality, probably do not care about their lives at all.
Rp 50,000,000 spent on a bag that will depreciate the moment it leaves the store carries a massive opportunity cost. If those funds were allocated to productive investment instruments yielding compound returns over 10 or 20 years, their value would become the foundation of real, robust wealth.
Should We Follow the Crowd? Understanding the Concept of Quiet Wealth
The fundamental question is: do we need to join this circus of luxury? The answer is unequivocal: No.
Chasing luxury brand trends is analogous to running on a treadmill whose speed keeps increasing; you keep draining energy, sweating financially, without ever actually going anywhere.
The fashion industry is built on the concept of planned obsolescence. Every season — spring, summer, autumn, winter — a new collection is released. The standard of luxury keeps shifting upward. What is considered the “it” item and most prestigious this year will become obsolete, outdated, and stripped of its social magic next year.
Individuals with deep financial literacy who truly understand the art of wealth management are well aware that true wealth is often quiet (stealth wealth or quiet luxury). They focus fundamentally on accumulating productive assets (businesses, investment portfolios, property), not on racing to collect consumptive liabilities in the form of items whose value keeps shrinking.
Those who are genuinely rich, both financially and mentally, do not feel the need to wear a “walking billboard” of designer logos across their body to prove their worth to the outside world. If your dignity, pride, and existential validation hang on the brand you wear, you will never feel enough. There will always be someone out there wearing something rarer, more expensive, and more exclusive.
A Spiritual Review: When Wealth Becomes the Scales in the Hereafter
For a Muslim, discussions of financial management, wealth management, and lifestyle must not stop at the money tracker app or a bank statement. Our financial records extend far beyond this world, towards the Supreme Court of the Creator.
Within the Islamic paradigm — in line with Maqashid Syariah under the pillar of Hifz al-Mal, the protection of wealth — there are parameters far more essential, philosophical, and eternal than the mere rationalisation of “being able to afford it”.
- The Argument of “At Least It’s Halal” Is Not Enough
We often hear the defensive justification from those fond of splurging on luxury goods: “This is my own money, I earned it with my own sweat day and night, and the source is 100% halal, so I’m free to buy whatever I want.”
It is true that the source of wealth must be halal, but Islamic law does not stop at the point of entry (income). The syariah strictly regulates the exit point as well (spending).
Purchasing a functional item at an utterly irrational price — hundreds of millions for a single bag, when a bag costing one million is just as sturdy and beautiful — purely to satisfy a thirst for social status and feed the ego, potentially falls into the category of israf (excess beyond the bounds of reasonableness) and tabdzir (squandering wealth on things that bring no real benefit).
Halal is the minimum standard of syariah compliance, but thayyib (good, wise, functional, and holistically beneficial) is the higher standard of worthiness. Wealth is a trust that must be managed with managerial intelligence.
- Why Does Islam Not Recommend This Lifestyle?
Islam is a comprehensive religion that deeply guards the spiritual health of individuals and the structural harmony of the community. A lifestyle sharply centred on material luxury often becomes a fertile incubator for destructive diseases of the heart, such as envy (hasad) upon seeing others with newer possessions, the exhausting competition of piling up worldly goods (takatsur), and ultimately the erosion of social sensitivity towards those in greater need around us.
Flaunting and self-elevation through material means runs diametrically counter to the principles of zuhud (not placing the world in one’s heart, but only in one’s hand) and tawadhu (humility) taught and exemplified so beautifully by the Prophet Muhammad SAW and his companions — including companions who were extraordinarily wealthy, such as Abdurrahman bin Auf, whose wealth was mountainous yet whose lifestyle remained humble.
- Wealth Will Be Accounted For Twice Over
On the plains of Mahsyar in the hereafter, Allah’s judgement will not overlook a single sen of our assets. Our lifespan, knowledge, and body will each be questioned with one central question. But wealth is a special subject that will be audited with two heavy, unavoidable questions: from where was it acquired, and where was it spent?
Spending tens of millions of rupiah — money that could turn the wheels of the community’s economy, become an education fund, or be endowed to build civilisation — merely on a piece of fabric for the sake of lifestyle and fleeting human appreciation will make the reckoning (hisab) extremely heavy, complicated, and lengthy before Allah SWT. Every rupiah spent paying the “prestige tax” must be justifiable in its urgency.
- The Intention to Flaunt and the Rejection from Paradise
This is the most fatal point, requiring the deepest cognitive and spiritual reflection. If the slightest intention flickers in the heart when swiping the payment card that this luxury item is being purchased so one may be regarded as higher in caste, more successful than peers, or simply to show off wealth at social gatherings or on social media, then that act has crossed into the realm of arrogance (kibr).
The Prophet Muhammad SAW gave a very blunt, firm, and heart-shaking warning in the hadith narrated by Muslim:
“No one will enter Paradise who has in his heart pride the weight of a mustard seed.”
Prestige, social recognition, and the desire to flaunt financial wealth may provide an instant dopamine injection and temporary ego satisfaction in this world. But the real price to be paid in the hereafter is astronomically high and simply not worth it.
A human being’s true nobility is never stitched from the golden threads of Europe’s famed fashion houses, but is tightly woven from piety, sound judgment, wise stewardship of what has been entrusted to us, and social benefit to fellow human beings.
In the end, let not the expensive clothes and exclusive bags we wear with arrogance in this fleeting world become the very cause that strips us of the right to wear the garments of honour of the inhabitants of Paradise. Maintaining financial sanity amid the barrage of luxury illusions is not merely about saving our economic future — it is also about keeping the scales of our deeds balanced in eternal life.