For most of my life, I believed in a very simple formula.

Work hard. Get into a good school. Get a good master’s degree. Say yes to opportunities. Be everywhere. Work harder than everyone else. If I could just stay disciplined enough, ambitious enough, useful enough, I could control the outcome.

I could make enough money. I could build the life I wanted. I could, in some way, beat the system.

And I don’t think that belief was completely naive. I think it was the formula that worked for a certain period of time. Maybe the 1980s, the 1990s, even the early 2000s. Education, a stable profession and consistent work could genuinely move you several economic classes forward. A salary was not necessarily just enough to survive on; it could be a tool for building a life.

But it’s 2026. I’m 35 years old, and lately I keep asking myself one question:

How did we collectively accept that buying a home is now considered a luxury?

When I was a child, our apartment building had a caretaker and his family living downstairs. I remember them saying that they would work there for a few years, save as much as they could and eventually buy a home of their own.

I don’t remember whether they originally said two years or three. It definitely took longer. Maybe five or six.

And those years were not easy. His wife cleaned houses. The family worked in and around the building. They collected rubbish, cleaned common areas, did whatever jobs they could find. They sacrificed a lot.

But eventually, they bought a modest apartment.

Nothing extravagant. No dream kitchen, no designer furniture, no perfect neighborhood.

But it was theirs.

I’ve thought about that family a lot recently, because at 35 I feel like I have learned two things that nobody really explained to me when I was younger.

The first: sometimes you have to lower your standard of living temporarily to raise it permanently.

This one is uncomfortable because I spent years believing I could simply work hard enough to have everything at the same time.

I wanted to eat out. I wanted to travel internationally. I wanted beautiful clothes and luxury bags. I wanted experiences. I wanted to enjoy my thirties. And at the same time, I wanted to buy a home.

And not just a home, obviously. 😅

I had a certain standard in my head.

When I look back at the family from my childhood, though, their strategy was completely different. For five or six years, the goal was the priority. Their lifestyle was built around it.

I’m not romanticizing that struggle. There is nothing glamorous about having to exhaust yourself to afford basic security, and I don’t think people should have to sacrifice half a decade of their lives just to own a modest home.

But there is still something I can learn from them.

I had been treating every desire as equally urgent.

Travel was important. Restaurants were important. Fashion was important. My social life was important. The house was important.

But financially, everything cannot be the main character at the same time.

Sometimes achieving one dream requires allowing the others to become slightly smaller for a while.

That doesn’t mean never traveling again or refusing yourself every small joy. It means admitting that choices have opportunity costs — even when we would prefer not to see them.

And then there is the second lesson, which might be even more important.

You cannot win today’s game by following the rules of twenty years ago.

This is the part I’ve struggled with the most.

Because I did what we were told to do.

Study. Work. Build experience. Become qualified. Keep going.

And yet the people creating extraordinary wealth today are increasingly not following the traditional career path at all.

They are building audiences on social media. They are creating YouTube channels, podcasts and newsletters. They are streaming. They are launching direct-to-consumer businesses. They are building software companies with tiny teams. They are trading or investing in new asset classes. They are creating digital products. They are earning through subscriptions, affiliate revenue, licensing, intellectual property, online communities and personal brands.

Some people made life-changing money from Bitcoin and other early investments. Others built companies through Shopify, Amazon or TikTok Shop. Some turned an Instagram account into a beauty brand. Others turned a podcast into a media company, a newsletter into a business, or expertise that once would have earned them a salary into an online course reaching tens of thousands of people.

Of course, there is enormous survivorship bias here.

For every creator making millions, there are thousands earning almost nothing. For every successful startup founder, there are many failed companies. And having a stable profession is not somehow less impressive or meaningful because somebody became rich on YouTube.

This isn’t an argument against traditional careers.

It is an argument about leverage.

The economic system rewards leverage in a way it did not before.

A doctor can only see a certain number of patients in one day. A lawyer has a limited number of billable hours. A salaried employee can be exceptional at their job, but their income is still usually tied, at least partially, to their time.

A video, however, can be watched by ten million people while its creator sleeps.

Software can be sold to one customer or one million customers without requiring one million times more labor.

A digital product can be created once and purchased thousands of times.

An audience can be monetized through multiple businesses.

Capital can generate more capital.

That difference matters enormously.

My generation was raised with a very linear understanding of success:

education → career → promotion → higher salary → savings → house

But today, the most dramatic financial outcomes often come from something much less linear:

audience → opportunity → ownership → scalability → multiple income streams

Or:

skill → internet → distribution → business

The internet did not make hard work irrelevant. In many ways, it made the competition even harder.

What it changed was what hard work could be attached to.

And maybe that is where I misunderstood the equation.

I thought if I worked hard enough inside the system, I would eventually beat the system.

But perhaps the real advantage today comes from building something that isn’t entirely dependent on the system.

Ownership matters more than I understood.

Owning equity. Owning a business. Owning intellectual property. Owning your audience. Owning an asset that can grow independently from the number of hours you personally work.

Because there is a ceiling to how many hours any of us can work.

There is no equivalent ceiling to distribution.

This realization has also forced me to reconsider what ambition looks like at 35.

When I was younger, ambition meant doing more.

More projects. More meetings. More work. More qualifications. More places to be. More people to know.

I thought being everywhere meant I had more control.

Now I wonder whether the smarter version of ambition is actually about being much more selective.

What deserves my time?

What am I building that I own?

What can continue to grow without requiring another hour of my day?

Where am I spending money simply because my current lifestyle has expanded to match my income?

And which parts of the life I say I want am I actually willing to prioritize?

None of this means the old rules were wrong.

My parents’ generation was not foolish for believing in education, stable employment or property ownership. Those were rational choices in the economy they were living in.

But conditions change.

Asset prices change.

Salaries change.

Technology changes.

The ways people build wealth change.

And insisting on using the same strategy simply because it worked twenty or thirty years ago is not discipline. Sometimes it is just refusing to update the map.

I still believe in hard work.

Probably more than I should.

But I no longer believe hard work automatically opens every door.

Hard work needs direction.

It needs leverage.

It needs ownership.

And, unfortunately, it sometimes needs sacrifice.

Maybe adulthood is realizing that you cannot have every version of your dream life simultaneously. You have to decide what you are building first.

And maybe success in 2026 isn’t about working harder at the game we inherited.

Maybe it’s about finally realizing that the game has changed.

I’ve had the same close group of friends for a very long time. We have history, inside jokes, memories, versions of ourselves that only exist when we’re together. For years, they were such a permanent part of my life that I never really imagined a future where we wouldn’t be close.

But somewhere along the way, the dynamic changed. Or maybe I changed enough to finally see it differently.

What used to feel safe and familiar started to feel heavy. There are things that happen now that genuinely hurt me. I leave conversations feeling worse about myself. I overthink things that were said. I find myself preparing for interactions instead of looking forward to them. And at some point, you have to admit that history alone doesn’t automatically make a relationship healthy.

The obvious answer should be: If something is hurting you, leave.

But human relationships are rarely that simple.

Because I’m not only grieving what the friendship is now. I’m grieving what it used to be. I’m grieving the idea that these people might no longer be part of my everyday life. That there will be dinners I’m not at, jokes I won’t understand anymore, life updates I’ll hear about months later—or maybe never.

There is something incredibly sad about realizing that a chapter of your life might continue without you in it.

And that’s the part people don’t really talk about when they say, “Choose yourself.”

Choosing yourself doesn’t always feel empowering. Sometimes it feels lonely. Sometimes it feels like guilt. Sometimes it feels like wondering whether you’re being dramatic, difficult or too sensitive. Sometimes you miss people even while knowing that being close to them isn’t good for you anymore.

Maybe that’s why we stay in certain friendships for so long. Not because we don’t know they’re hurting us, but because leaving means accepting that something we thought would last forever… didn’t.

I think I’m slowly learning that choosing yourself doesn’t mean you suddenly stop loving people. It doesn’t mean the memories become meaningless. And it doesn’t necessarily mean anyone has to be the villain.

Sometimes it just means accepting that something can have been beautiful, important and real—and still not be right for you anymore.

I know that intellectually.

I’m just trying to figure out how to make my heart believe it too.

Vogue’s new cover features Kaia Gerber, Cindy Crawford’s daughter, and Homer Gere, Richard Gere’s son, but the thing I can’t stop thinking about is this: how did fashion imagery become this anonymous?

So many recent Vogue covers seem to follow the exact same formula: a plain studio backdrop, beautiful people, beautiful clothes, technically perfect lighting and almost no visual storytelling. No real sense of place, fantasy or point of view. And that’s what bothers me. A Vogue cover should do more than show us good styling; it should create a world, capture a mood, and tell us something about the moment we’re living in.

The strongest thing about this cover is Kaia’s styling. Beyond that, it feels beautiful but strangely forgettable.

And then you remember: this is a September issue.

Traditionally, September is the most important issue in fashion publishing. It marks the beginning of the new fashion season, carries some of the biggest advertising of the year, and historically has been the moment when a magazine makes its strongest editorial statement.

Which makes a cover this safe, minimal and visually anonymous feel even more surprising. For a September issue, I don’t just want beautiful clothes on a beautiful person. I want an image I’ll remember years later. I want fashion mythology.

How is it possible that, in 2026, we have a Vogue cover that feels less exciting than Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford’s 1992 cover?

That’s the part that really gets me. We have better cameras, bigger budgets, endless references, entire archives of fashion history at our fingertips — and somehow so much of fashion imagery feels flatter, safer and more soulless than ever.

I think that’s what bothers me most: not that the cover is bad, but that it feels like it has nothing to say. Everything is becoming so polished and so correct that we’re slowly editing out the personality. And honestly, I miss the drama, the fantasy and the sense that a fashion image could actually become part of culture.

Remember the scene where Carrie Bradshaw gets mugged on the street? When the robber demands her bag, she corrects him: “It’s not a bag, it’s a Baguette.”

That line didn’t just become one of the most iconic quotes in Sex and the City history; it also immortalized a handbag’s place in fashion history.

A quarter of a century later, that Baguette is back. Except this time, it isn’t necessarily sitting in a boutique window. It’s being hunted down in vintage stores, at auctions and across resale platforms.

In fact, one of the biggest shifts in fashion over the past few years hasn’t been happening in new collections at all. It has been happening in old ones.

There was a time when “second-hand” primarily meant a more affordable alternative. Today, vintage carries an entirely different meaning. It’s no longer simply about saving money; it’s about owning something from another era, something with character, history and, most importantly, something not everyone else can have.

And this is exactly where the definition of luxury begins to change.

For decades, luxury meant being among the first to own something from the newest collection. Today, prestige increasingly lies in finding something that is no longer being made. In other words, value is shifting away from what anyone can buy and toward what very few people can actually find.

One of the clearest examples of this is the Fendi Baguette.

Designed by Silvia Venturini Fendi in 1997, the bag was named after the way French people traditionally carry a baguette tucked under the arm. It was small, designed to sit tightly beneath the shoulder, and had a silhouette that felt surprisingly bold for its time.

But what transformed it into a phenomenon wasn’t simply its design. It was pop culture.

From the moment it appeared on Carrie Bradshaw’s shoulder, the Baguette helped redefine the very idea of the “It bag.”

What’s particularly interesting today is that some of the most sought-after Baguettes aren’t necessarily the newest ones. Collectors are searching for embroidered versions, sequined editions, denim designs and limited artist collaborations from decades past.

The same fascination surrounds Dior Saddle Bags from the Galliano era, pieces from Tom Ford’s years at Gucci and Phoebe Philo’s designs for Céline.

And this is precisely why the term “archive fashion” has become such a major part of the fashion conversation.

When Zendaya walks a red carpet in a dress pulled from one of John Galliano’s old Dior collections, it isn’t a coincidence. Neither is Bella Hadid wearing archival Jean Paul Gaultier, Kylie Jenner choosing vintage Alaïa, or Rihanna turning to couture from seasons past.

Fashion is no longer an industry obsessed exclusively with what comes next. Increasingly, it is rediscovering the very best of what came before.

Social media has played a major role in this shift.

Algorithms show us the same trends. The same bags, the same shoes and the same outfits appear on our screens millions of times. In an environment where everyone has access to the same references, truly looking different becomes increasingly difficult.

And suddenly, the answer isn’t necessarily in next season’s collection.

It’s in the past.

The rise of vintage is, in many ways, also the rise of individuality.

The scratches on a Baguette, the way its color has changed over time, the traces of a life lived before it reached you—these are no longer automatically considered imperfections. Instead, they become part of the object’s story.

Perhaps this is where luxury is undergoing its most interesting transformation.

Once, perfection was valuable.

Today, character is.

And this fascination extends far beyond clothing. From watches and jewelry to sunglasses and luggage, collecting is experiencing a resurgence across categories. Limited-edition pieces and designs from specific eras are increasingly being considered not only as fashion purchases, but as objects with potential collectible value.

More and more fashion lovers are building wardrobes around a question that goes beyond, “How much do I love this?”

They’re also asking: “What is the story behind it?”

This shift is influencing fashion houses themselves.

In recent years, many brands have returned to their own archives for inspiration. Fendi’s reinterpretations of the Baguette, Dior’s revival of the Saddle Bag and Gucci’s references to its Tom Ford era are among the most visible examples.

The past is no longer simply a source of inspiration.

It has become one of fashion houses’ most powerful assets.

And perhaps that is exactly why vintage has returned with such force.

For the first time in fashion history, it feels as though we are looking to the past in order to understand what comes next.

Maybe the best definition of the new luxury is this:

True luxury is no longer owning the newest thing. It is finding something designed years ago that can still make you feel something today.

Because some designs were never meant to belong to a single season.

Like the Fendi Baguette.

They become part of time itself.

The announcement that the 2027 Met Gala will be dedicated to John Galliano may be one of the biggest fashion stories in recent years. But this decision is about more than honoring a designer; it has reopened a much larger conversation about fashion’s memory, its conscience, and the way it chooses to forgive.

There are certain names in fashion history whose influence extends far beyond the clothes they created. Coco Chanel, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen—and, of course, John Galliano.

Today, when Galliano’s name is mentioned, most people think of theatrical runway shows, couture collections steeped in historical references, or his unforgettable years at Dior. Yet the same name is also associated with one of the most dramatic falls from grace in modern fashion history, following the antisemitic remarks he made in Paris in 2011.

That is precisely why the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s announcement that its 2027 Costume Institute exhibition, “John Galliano: Horizons,” will be dedicated to Galliano has sparked debate not only within fashion, but across the wider cultural landscape.

While the exhibition will celebrate a career spanning more than four decades, it has also made clear that it will not ignore the 2011 hate-speech scandal or the process of rebuilding that followed. It will also make Galliano only the third living designer to receive a monographic Costume Institute exhibition

.

So why now?

In many ways, the answer becomes obvious when you look at Galliano’s career.

John Galliano was never simply someone who designed clothes. He is perhaps one of fashion’s greatest examples of a designer who understood clothing as a form of storytelling. His shows were populated not only by garments, but by characters: pirates, exiled queens, opera singers, revolutionaries, aristocrats.

A Galliano runway was never simply a runway. It was a stage.

His 1984 Central Saint Martins graduate collection, “Les Incroyables,” caused such a sensation that the entire collection was purchased before he had even properly begun his career. Inspired by the post-French Revolution period, it offered an early glimpse of what would become his signature: historical references filtered through romance, fantasy and dramatic silhouettes.

That approach would eventually take him first to Givenchy and then to Christian Dior.

When Galliano became Dior’s creative director in 1996, couture had not felt this exciting in years. Rather than simply preserving Christian Dior’s legacy, Galliano chose to rewrite it. Victorian corsetry collided with Japanese kimonos; 18th-century France was reimagined through the spectacle of old Hollywood.

His Dior was not merely luxurious. It was cinematic.

Even today, many of the most unforgettable couture collections in modern fashion history belong to this period.

But Galliano’s career was never a story of uninterrupted ascent.

In 2011, videos emerged of an intoxicated Galliano making antisemitic remarks in Paris, bringing his career to an almost immediate halt. Dior dismissed him. He lost control of his namesake label. In France, he was convicted over public antisemitic abuse.

For fashion, it became more than the story of a designer losing his job. It marked a moment when the industry was forced to confront, with unusual intensity, the limits of what it was willing to excuse in the name of “genius.”

For years, Galliano largely disappeared from public view. He underwent treatment for addiction, publicly apologized and met with representatives of Jewish communities in an effort to confront what he had done.

The fashion industry remained cautious.

For some, forgiveness was impossible. For others, the severity of his actions did not entirely erase the significance of his creative contribution. That tension has never been completely resolved.

And that is precisely what makes the second act of Galliano’s career at Maison Margiela so significant.

When he was appointed creative director of Margiela in 2014, many assumed the partnership would fail. Margiela was synonymous with anonymity, restraint and conceptual experimentation; Galliano, with spectacle and theatricality. On paper, they seemed almost fundamentally incompatible.

Instead, the opposite happened.

Galliano fused his instinct for theatrical storytelling with Margiela’s experimental DNA. The result was a couture language more daring than almost anything fashion had seen in years.

The 2024 Artisanal collection, in particular, became one of those rare runway moments that transcended the fashion industry and entered internet culture almost instantly. Porcelain-doll makeup, corseted bodies that seemed almost painted into existence, intensely constructed characters and a cinematic atmosphere kept the collection in conversation for days.

Widely regarded by fashion critics as one of the most compelling couture presentations in recent years, the show demonstrated that Galliano’s creative power had not disappeared.

The record prices subsequently commanded by archival pieces, alongside the announcement of a creative collaboration with Zara, made one thing increasingly difficult to deny: this comeback was no accident.

It was against this backdrop that the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced an exhibition placing Galliano at its center—a decision that, to many, felt inevitable and controversial in equal measure.

Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton’s approach is particularly significant. “John Galliano: Horizons” will not simply be a retrospective celebrating Galliano’s greatest achievements. The exhibition intends to examine his sources of inspiration, his creative process and the darkest chapter of his career as parts of the same story.

During preparations, Anna Wintour and members of the museum’s team reportedly consulted prominent members of New York’s Jewish community to discuss the ethical dimensions of the exhibition.

The intention, then, is not to erase the past. If anything, it is to argue that creative genius cannot be considered entirely separate from responsibility.

Still, not everyone is convinced.

The debate that erupted across social media after the announcement makes that clear. Some see the exhibition as long-overdue institutional recognition of Galliano’s extraordinary contribution to fashion. Others argue that placing someone with a history of antisemitic hate speech at the center of such a prestigious cultural platform sends the wrong message.

And perhaps that is because the debate has never really been about Galliano alone.

It raises a much larger question: Can we separate an artist’s work from their personal history? And if we can, who gets to decide where that line is drawn?

Perhaps that is why the 2027 Met Gala will not simply be the most glamorous red carpet of the year. It may become a night in which fashion is forced to confront its own conscience.

Because Galliano’s story is not simply the story of one designer. It is a much larger narrative about the limits of creativity, the consequences of wrongdoing, the conditions of forgiveness and the way cultural memory is constructed.

Fashion history often prefers to remember beautiful clothes.

Real history records the contradictions, too.

Perhaps that is what “John Galliano: Horizons” will ultimately attempt to do: tell the story of a designer without turning him into a flawless hero, presenting his achievements, his failures and his transformation within the same frame.

And perhaps that is why the real subject of the 2027 Met Gala will not be Galliano’s clothes at all.

It will be where we choose to draw the line between genius, accountability and forgiveness.