In the middle of a few very dirty martinis (non-alcoholic for me, s'il vous plaît) with some very chic & elegant people, it just hit me, “the smartest and most ambitious people I know are all in a members-only club trap.”

Welcome to Redefining the 1%, where I highlight culture, behavior, and business mindset amongst the world’s leaders, and why it’s worth studying, but not worth worshipping.

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Disclaimer:

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Casa Cipriani: it is still one of the few elegant places in New York that gets its hospitality, art, and aura right at the same time. The rooms are beautiful, the service is unhurried, and the Zucchini chips are a chef's kiss. Every time I go, I enjoy my time there.

Yet still, as I sat in the middle of the dazzling lounge, a thought that I’ve been sitting on for years popped up: my gosh, why have the world's great members-only clubs become a velvet treadmill and an ego trap? Let’s talk about it.

In the following section, I’ll cover:

1. Members-only club: the core business model

2. The actual math/expenses that are beyond just the membership fee

3. What’s the real ROI? Is it worth it?

4. What are you actually paying for?

5. Why is it such a strange business?

6. Your guide to: so, should I get that membership?

This is a thorough analysis because the question shouldn’t be "are clubs worth it?"

The Core Business Model - Application As The Product

Alright, to get into a serious club (Yale Club, Harvard Club, Zero Bond, etc.), you need referrals, a legible reputation, and a committee willing to vouch for you in rooms you're not in. Some of these waitlists can run for years, and at the top end, it is genuinely harder than getting into Harvard, and everyone involved knows it.

What are they selling? The feeling of being chosen.

You spend 18 months waiting for your application to get approved, and when it finally gets approved, here comes the real cost.

The Expenses That Are Beyond A Membership Fee

Great, you’ve been accepted; congratulations. But if you think you’re just paying for an annual membership fee, you’re more than wrong. Let’s break down the math together.

• Basic annual membership fee: $3000~$6,000 (as a < 30-year-old “young member” for most clubs) + a few thousand in initiation fee (depends on the club)

• Commute: Say you live in the West Village and work in Midtown. How often are you realistically going down to the Casa Cipriani or Spring Place (Tribeca) for a drink? You come on weekends. Once, maybe twice. You take an Uber ~$40 one way, because the public transit is what it is and you're not taking the subway in your cashmere or linen (fine, maybe if you're alone). If you can't be there often, you never become a regular.

• Food & Beverage:

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Asia taught me to think long-term, and the quiet stillness of putting your head down.

America taught me to grind and hustle, and the importance of self-advocacy.

Europe taught me the sweetness of doing nothing, and the art of sprezzatura.

So which one is right? Well, keep reading to find out 👇

(Tokyo, Japan)

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Asia taught me to think long-term

I grew up in Shanghai, in a family of passionate entrepreneurs. People around me thought extremely long-term, and the humble ethos of “put your head down, work hard, never stand out too much” was deeply embedded in the culture.

What that world taught me is that real wealth has a horizon. Plant your seed now, harvest the fruits in a decade, and always have a 10-year plan. But with my fire-y 💥 personality and unconventional way of thinking, I knew I was born to be an outlier.

So I left.

America taught me to grind and hustle

Upon graduation, I became a banker on Wall Street, staying up till 2am every night executing hundred-million dollar M&A deals. I was young, hungry, and deeply ambitious. Looking back, that lifestyle was completely chaotic and unsustainable, but my young soul handled the grind quite well.

[Check out my YouTube video on “Day in The Life of A NYC Investment Banker” from 4 years ago]

Here’s the thing though: America’s mistake isn’t the ambition. It’s the display. It confuses exhaustion with virtue, and it will happily sell you the next title, the next bag, the next tier of the same tiredness, and call it “life”.

I was tired of buying it. So I did what anyone would - I escaped to Europe to “find my soul.”

Europe taught me the sweetness of doing nothing

My time in Barcelona, Milan, Paris, and London taught me to enjoy a life well-lived instead of a life well-hustled. I would sit at long, beautiful dinners that ran way past the appropriate hour, having conversations about philosophy, art, history, and the meaning of life. Nobody asked what anyone did for work. Quite frankly, your work should simply be the least interesting thing about you.

Some of the people I grew closest to in those years came from true European old money, and they ran on a code called “sprezzatura”.

Sprezzatura is an Italian term coined by Baldassare Castiglione in his 1528 book “The Book of the Courtier,” and it means making difficult things appear effortless. In Castiglione’s world, the rule was simple: rehearse everything, and let none of it show. To the elites, visible effort was vulgar. It meant you were still trying to arrive at the destination: wealth, fame, status, power.

Five hundred years later, sprezzatura still quietly runs the old money world. And watching it up close, I finally understood both its glamour and its cost. Because in those circles, working hard is quietly shameful. It suggests you weren’t born there. And a world where effort is embarrassing = world where nothing is allowed to change, including you.

And I went back to America…

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Darlings, the World Cup confetti has barely been swept out of the MetLife suites (goodbye New Jersey-Humphrey), and the circuit has already moved on.

The 1% are heading to Monaco (Red Cross Gala, July 18th), Côte d'Azur (St.Tropez Summer Gala, July 23rd), and Bridgehampton (Polo Hamptons, July 25th) this week to continue the party 🐎.

Meanwhile at Sotheby's, a signed leather jacket by Jensen Huang just sold for the price of a pied-à-terre, a sheer $960,000! Brussels pulled €2 million out from under the Venice Biennale, and the most powerful man (Pace Gallery) in the art industry announced that the gallery business model is “deeply broken and unfixable”.

Pour something delicious. Here's what I'm watching this week and exactly why you should too.

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ACCESS | Where they go & what it takes to get in

Ready, set, JET | The 1% are in two places this week

The 77th Red Cross Gala (Jul 18, Salle des Étoiles) anchored the Riviera season. Hosted by Prince Albert II & Princess Charlène, 800+ invite-only guests and donors joined this beautiful evening. The very same weekend, Polo Hamptons is continuing its match-and-VIP-tent in Bridgehampton (Jul 18, encore Jul 25). If you think the 1% is choosing which event to go to, they’re attending both. With an extra dash of Gala One’s Saint-Tropez Summer Gala on Jul 23.

🔗 Polo Hamptons — Social Life Magazine

✨ Why it matters: “Been around the world, don't speak the language, but the access codes don’t need explaining” - Jason Derulo

July's hotel drops: Como, Paris, Tokyo

A perfectly balanced month of openings for your next stay:

• The Lake Como EDITION (contemporary glamour in a restored 19th-century villa)

• Maison Barrière Vendôme in Paris (every room pays tribute to an influential woman in French culture)

• 1 Hotel Tokyo, the brand's Japan debut, with a 38th-floor botanical lobby above Akasaka.

• Fouquet's is even opening a Mykonos hideaway to recover from the partying. 🔗 The best new hotels — Wallpaper*

✨ Why it matters: understanding the history behind a hospitality brand evokes more substance than just knowing they are expensive

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ASSET | What they own, collect, and compound

A leather jacket signed by a tech billionaire just traded like a Picasso-painting

Jensen Huang's signed Tom Ford leather jacket just sold at Sotheby's on July 17 for $960,000! The original estimate was $40~60K. I’m not a math genius, but the 16x signals something extremely valuable. Yet, with that price tag, there were high demand (45 bidders, 65 bids). 🔗 Nvidia chief's jacket smashes estimates — Artnet News

✨ Why it matters: The market just confirmed that artifacts such as the jacket, the race suit, the archive Birkin are now trading on provenance like art does.

This is keeping the art industry’s most powerful man up all night

Pace Gallery (perhaps one of the most iconic and influential galleries in the world)’s CEO Marc Glimcher called the mega-gallery model "not only broken, it's unfixable". He proceeded to cut ~ 50 of 130 artists and 20% of staff.

Pair that with The Canvas's contrarian read of the spring auctions: the celebrated $2.1B "recovery" leaned on a handful of trophy lots and pre-arranged guarantees, masking much shakier depths. 🔗 The Canvas

✨ Why it matters: Absurd auctions like that million-dollar jacket (signed by Jensen Huang) and a shrinking mega-gallery are all pointing to this phenomenon: money is fleeing the middle of the art market for the provable, the storied, the singular.

Brussels pulls €2M from the Venice Biennale

The EU formally withdrew its €2 million grant to the Venice Biennale over the reopened Russian Pavilion due to geopolitical conflict and controversy. 🔗 EU officially pulls Biennale funding — The Art Newspaper

✨ Why it matters: Geopolitics now prices itself directly into culture's most prestigious stage. For collectors, the Biennale was the last "neutral" room in the art world. Hmmm looks like are no neutral rooms anymore.

Burberry's comeback is being bankrolled by Chinese and American Gen Z

Burberry’s Q1 retail sales up 5% to £455M. In a times where global luxury sales is quite sluggish, Burberry’s continuous growth over the last 4 quarters is a shock. Contributing to this growth is the “outsized” Gen Z uptick in Greater China (+9%) and the Americas up 12%. 🔗 Burberry Q1, fueled by Gen Z and China — WWD

✨ Why it matters: Fashion is all about cycles. What does it say about Gen Z’s longing for nostalgia for the most traditional pieces and patterns?

AUTONOMY | The freedom to build it on your own terms

Chaumet’s CEO has a contrarian thesis during market downturns

Charles Leung is the first Asian CEO of an LVMH maison and the CEO of high jewelry maison Chaumet. His thesis is: while the industry discounts and chases volume, Chaumet is going up-market, serving the ultra-high-net-worth individual (UHNWI). Why? Because the top 1% of jewelry’s clients want elevation over ubiquity, nature-inspired one-of-ones over logo product. They want to feel ultra special like the stars that they are. 🔗 Chaumet's CEO on outlasting the cycle — Jing Daily

✨ Why it matters: Autonomy is refusing the industry's panic on principle. Chaumet is using a downturn as a bet to hedge against what everyone else is doing.

Editor-in-Chief, Melanie Fan | Decoding the 1%

Meanwhile, a stadium in New Jersey has the sheer audacity to reinvent itself and earned a spot on the “luxury worldmap” by hosting the World Cup Final. Rest assured, Jersey won’t be in the spotlight for long.

Oh, and, Formula 1's paddock has quietly become the season's hottest party. Hermès and Chanel are rewriting who even gets through the door, Monterey is about to auction off a fortune on classic vintage cars, and Tiffany is staking its crown jewels on one long-gone heiress's taste.

Pour something chilled, my loves. Here's what I'm watching this week, and exactly why you should too.

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ACCESS | Where they go & what it takes to get in

The Paris Couture Show is the decoy, while the real room is most definitely upstairs

Paris Haute Couture (Jul 6–9) has closed; this time, the headline was not just about a gown. It was jewelmaxxing. The maisons increasingly use the week as cover for private high-jewelry appointments, where the seven-figure stones (not the runway looks) become the true JEWEL (no pun intended) of the business.

🔗 The most dazzling jewels at Couture Week — Something About Rocks

✨ Why it matters: The show is the spectacle you're allowed to see. The sale happens in the room you're not.

A stadium becomes a velvet rope

The World Cup final lands at MetLife on July 19, and it is the first on US soil since 1994. I said it here first, soccer is the side quest. The real contest is in hospitality: the suites, the brand activations, the celebrity boxes (premium and suite inventory is the most compressed of the entire tournament). A football pitch is now a social-season venue for the riches in America. 🔗 FIFA World Cup Final — MetLife Stadium

✨ Why it matters: From London to Jersey, the 1% don’t come to watch the match. They just changed locations and came to watch who else got the box.

“Marrakesh…when?” LV, Hermès, and Chanel are using bespoke ultra-luxury trips to court Asia’s 0.001%.

The maisons are overhauling how they treat their most important clients in Asia: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) finds that the top 0.1% of clients now generate 37% of the luxury sector’s value, with 80% of luxury’s top clients preferring intimate, exclusive spaces over standardized retail. Top luxury players are seeing experiences that are private, slow, controlled, and difficult to reproduce online.

Examples: Louis Vuitton recently invited clients to Marrakech for a private high jewelry showing. Chanel gathered its top Chinese clients at a private high jewelry gala dedicated to Chinese New Year in London this February.

🔗 Jing Daily

✨ Why it matters: Accessibility is replacing visibility. Access is no longer about money and started being about belonging. The waitlist for the birkin was never the real gate, being invited to an intimate dinner is.

(Louis Vuitton in Marrakesh, Morocco)

ASSETS | What they own, collect, and compound

The collector-car Super Bowl in California is three weeks out

Monterey Car Week (Monterey, California, USA) and the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance run Aug 7–16. Exciting season for the sunny california - the Quail garden party, hundreds of millions in auctions, the single greatest concentration of rolling assets on earth. 🔗 Monterey Car Week 2026

✨ Why it matters: Start teasing now, darlings. By August the good tables, and the good cars, are long gone.

Tiffany bets its crown jewels on an heiress’s taste

Tiffany’s Blue Book returns for 2026. This is the house’s annual high-jewelry summit and where its most serious stones make their grand debut. “Hidden Garden,” which is a five-chapter ode to flora and fauna that revives Jean Schlumberger, Tiffany’s most collectible design language.

Think cabochon rubellites chosen for their juicy, near-edible red, and the whimsical butterflies Schlumberger once dreamed up for heiress Bunny Mellon. Tiffany drove the point home on July 6 with its “Love & Celebration” campaign starring Oscar winner Mikey Madison, fronting the new “Sixteen Stone” solitaire — a ring lifted straight from a 1959 Schlumberger design. 🔗 Tiffany Blue Book 2026 — Natural Diamonds

✨ Why it matters: In high jewelry, provenance is the asset. Anchoring the season’s biggest stones to a 60-year-old archive isn’t nostalgia — it’s Tiffany reminding you that you’re not buying a carat, you’re buying a bloodline.

AUTONOMY | The freedom to build it on your own terms

F1’s velvet paddock, now with a soundtrack

Formula 1 is turning race weekends into cultural platforms: Silverstone is leaning hard into UK rap (Lewis Hamilton’s House 44 hosted intimate sets), emerging talent written into the growth plan via F1 Tracks: Discovery. The cars are the excuse; the paddock (and now the after-party) is the whole point. 🔗 F1 Tracks: Discovery showcases emerging acts at Silverstone — Music Week

✨ Why it matters: When a Grand Prix starts breaking pop stars, the race is just the opening act.

Taylor Swift’s wedding puttings “neo-Chinese dresses” on everyone’s mind

Taylor Swift’s wedding wasn’t merely a wedding. It was arguably the most anticipated cultural event of the year. And this year, guests turned up wearing Sau Lee, a Hong Kong-native brand that has spent decades making Chinese heritage impossibly cool (Gemma Chan, Winnie Harlow and Jamie Chung are already devotees). Its arrival on fashion’s single biggest stage was the turning point: neo-Chinese design showing up as the main event, being worn on its own terms. 🔗 Sau Lee’s Taylor Swift moment — Jing Daily

✨ Why it matters: For years, “Chinese luxury” was something Western maisons borrowed for a capsule and a campaign. A homegrown, women-led label crashing the year’s most-watched wedding flips that script entirely.

Editor-in-Chief,

Melanie Fan | Decoding the 1%

Darlings, if last week was the British season's garden party, this week is the fitting room in Paris — hushed salons, velvet ropes, and Elite Voyeurism in its most rarefied form.

Meanwhile over in London, Wimbledon is still very much on (with Goodwood in anticipation this weekend), and the 1% are doing what they do best: watching who's in the room as closely as who's on the court.

Here's what I'm watching this week, and why you should too.

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ACCESS | Where they go & what it takes to get in

Paris couture's great reshuffle

Haute Couture Week (Jul 6–9) is the most exclusive show on earth. No amount of connections, resale, or money can get you in unless a maison decides that you belong (oof). And this season, the front row is watching the biggest changing-of-the-guard couture has seen in years:

• Pierpaolo Piccioli unveils his very first couture collection for Balenciaga (Jul 8)

• Matthieu Blazy shows his sophomore couture for Chanel

• Jonathan Anderson delivers his second for Dior

• In a rare crack in couture's European wall, Indian couturier Manish Malhotra takes the Paris stage the same day. 🔗 Unpacking the Haute Couture AW26 schedule — Wallpaper* · Paris Haute Couture July 2026 calendar — Fashionista

✨ Why it matters: Couture sells belonging. When three of the four biggest houses hand the keys to new designers in a single week, the language of who's in gets rewritten in real time, and Mumbai now has a seat at the table.

Silverstone's velvet paddock

The British Grand Prix (Jul 3–5) just wrapped, and the real race was in hospitality: House 44, the Lewis Hamilton × Soho House suite perched over Abbey corner, and the F1 Paddock Club above the pit lane, with private track tours, daily pit walks, and podium access as the champagne rains down. Vroom vroom. 🔗 House 44 at F1 Paddock Club — F1 Experiences

✨ Why it matters: F1 has quietly become the 1%'s favourite membership. The cars are the excuse; the paddock is the point.

Asia's new address book

While Europe does couture, Asia is quietly building the rooms everyone will want next:

• The 95-room Four Seasons Hanoi on Hoan Kiem Lake and the boutique Theodore Hanoi lead a 2026 class

• NoMad makes its debut on Singapore’s Orchard Road

• Bvlgari to the Maldives’ Raa Atoll. 🔗 10 New Hotel Openings to Watch in Asia — Skift

✨ Why it matters: The smallest keys are the hardest to get. 95 rooms is a velvet rope with a lobby, and Asia is now writing the guest list.

ASSET | What they own, collect, and compound

Who said car brands can’t build a yacht club?

Maybach and Splendid Sea just revealed “Beyond Horizons,” a 508-foot gigayacht that will house the Maybach Ocean Club — a floating private members’ club, launch targeted around 2029. A car maison sailing its badge straight into hospitality and the high seas. 🔗 Maybach’s gigayacht members’ club — Robb Report

✨ Why it matters: Oh la la, the newest status object is a membership you’re granted. When a car brand builds a yacht club, luxury just ascends to a whole new level.

$17.6M for a woman, in Asia

The reference price of the year still stands from Hong Kong’s spring sales: Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallée VII hammered at HK$137.4M ($17.6M), the most ever paid for a work by a woman artist at auction in Asia, in a white-glove season driven almost entirely by Asian collectors. 🔗 Joan Mitchell sets Asia record — The Value · $160M Hong Kong haul — Artnet

✨ Why it matters: The Asian art market is writing new records, and increasingly they belong to women. Blue-chip is no longer a boys’ club, and the smart money already knows it.

AUTONOMY | The freedom to build it on your own terms

Reformation's founder-CEO takes it public

Hali Borenstein — a 12-year insider who rose from merchandising to the top job — has steered the sustainable label Reformation to a NYSE IPO filing (ticker REF, filed Jun 25), on $507M in revenue and 30% first-quarter growth. One of the very few female-led fashion houses reaching for the public markets right now. 🔗 The insider taking Reformation public — FashionUnited · Reformation files for IPO — WWD

✨ Why it matters: An IPO is the ultimate autonomy move, turning a brand you built into generational wealth (well, book value here) without handing your name to a conglomerate (still tied to investor responsibilities though).

The under-40s opening their own museums

A new Larry's List report shows a generation of Greater China collectors under 40 who aren't waiting for an institution to validate them. They're opening private museums, foundations, and artist residencies of their own. Greater China now ranks 4th in the world with 30 private contemporary-art museums.

Greater China now ranks 4th in the world with 30 private contemporary-art museums. 🔗 Young collectors shaking up China’s art scene — SCMP · The Next Gen Art Collectors Report — Larry’s List

✨ Why it matters: Previous generations waited to be collected by official institutions; the new comers in Asia build the institution, hang the work, and write their own places in art history.

Editor-in-Chief,

Melanie Fan | Decoding the 1%

ACCESS | Where they go & what it takes to get in

Wimbledon's no-logo flex

The Championships open Monday (Jun 29) and the first thing you'll notice is what's missing. There will be no flashy billboards (like the Super Bowl), no glistening LED boards, and almost no branding for the heritage brands.

Wimbledon lets in only a handful of partners each year. This year, it’s no one but the Range Rover renewing as an official partner and is handpicked for the privilege of being barely seen.

✨ Why it matters: Real luxury isn't the logo you show, but instead, it's the room you're discreetly allowed into.

Goodwood: where China crashes the garden party

The Festival of Speed (Jul 9–12) is one of the world's most exclusive driveways. Paying homage to the Duke of Richmond, classic vintage cars and the who's who of British high society will gather in Chichester for an endless supply of champagne, charm, and speed. Vroom vroom.

The twist this year: BYD's Yangwang U9 Xtreme, a Chinese electric hypercar, storming an institution built on old-money British petrol. 🔗 BYD Group set to wow at Goodwood 2026 — BYD Media · Festival of Speed tickets & hospitality

✨ Why it matters: When a Chinese hypercar is the headline at the world's poshest car event, hmmm… does that mean the old hierarchy of "who makes the dream machine" is officially over?

Hong Kong’s 7-star reopening

Mandarin Oriental The Landmark reopened June 1 after a full transformation (finally)! A Joyce Wang foyer blending Qing-dynasty and Western design, and seven Michelin stars under one roof. Opening suites ~$7,200 a night. 🔗 Mandarin Oriental The Landmark unveils its next chapter

Why it matters: As Seoul and Hong Kong overtake long-haul on mainland travel lists, HK is quietly reclaiming the crown as Asia’s flagship stay.

ASSET | What they own, collect, and compound

Geopolitics moves your handbag stock

LVMH, Kering and Hermès each jumped ~5% in mid-June on a rumored U.S.–Iran deal. Honestly, it’s been a rather slow year for European luxury, and the Middle East had been one of luxury's last growth pockets. Wall Street frowns as LVMH's Q1 financials only grew by 1%, which misses the target.

Mark your calendars and let’s see what happenings during the next earnings date: July 28. 🔗 Luxury stocks spike on proposed peace deal — CNBC

Why it matters: The luxury handbags in your closet is a macro asset now, and right now it trades on headlines from the Strait of Hormuz.

How luxury sells you the dream (the receipts)

Cannes Lions (the Super Bowl for marketing, ad tech, and content creation) just wrapped this week, and the winners are a masterclass in storytelling. Examples are Tiffany & Co.’s “Mermaid,” Valentino Beauty’s Studio 54 experience, IWC, Dom Pérignon, Moncler, Coach. 🔗 Cannes Lions 2026 Luxury Grand Prix winners — LBBOnline

Why it matters: The desire you feel for these brands is highly engineered, and now with AI in the mix, you’re being sold before you even realize.

The Chinese jeweler that tripled its money

Beijing's Laopu Gold posted RMB 27.3B (~$3.95B) in 2025 revenue. They are up 221% and making it the #2 luxury brand by China revenue.

The trick here: fixed-price, high-carat handcrafted gufa gold, controlled by deliberate scarcity, and a 27% price hike. Classic. 🔗 How premium pricing powered Laopu past its peers — Jing Daily

Why it matters: Laopu broke the rule every other brnad lives by: they are getting pricier and more popular at once, by selling heritage as an asset class.

AUTONOMY | The freedom to build it on your own terms

The women who took over the maisons

2026 is a year for quiet power shift in luxury: Laura Burdese now runs Bulgari, Amandine Ohayon takes Givenchy, Barbara Werschine leads Lanvin, and Catherine Jacquet heads Isabel Marant. 🔗 LVMH names Laura Burdese CEO of Bulgari — BoF

Why it matters: The corner office in luxury is tilting female and these are the names to know.

The highest-paid woman in sport, by design

Coco Gauff arrives at Wimbledon as the highest-paid female athlete, having just added Mercedes-Benz to a roster that already includes Rolex, New Balance and Emirates. Name another female athlete who’s amassed a portfolio like this… $33 million! 🔗 Coco Gauff announces new partnership as highest-paid female player

Why it matters: At the age of only 22, Coco is choosing “autonomy” as a deliberate strategy.

Editor-in-Chief,

Melanie Fan | Decoding the 1%