This article is part of our Advanced Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to The Long View from Vogue Business, The Fashion Exec s Guide and Market Insights Reports, sign up for Advanced Membership here.
In our new series, Generational Breakdown, we explore consumer behaviour across all living generations to get a better idea of how they are buying luxury in 2025.
Rekha Menon is a 60-year-old corporate finance consultant based in New Jersey, who shops two to three times per month across high street and luxury brands. She only began shopping for luxury in her later decades, including Chanel handbags, shoes and jewellery, Dior shoes and Celine sunglasses. Unlike younger consumers, Menon is incredibly brand loyal, isn’t influenced by social media and shops luxury exclusively in-store. “I just reached an age I guess where I like wearing fewer classic pieces,” she says. “My own sense of style makes me lean towards specific brands.”
It’s an unfamiliar consumer profile for myself and Vogue Business, as like the majority of marketers and publications, we’ve been largely focused on Gen Z and Gen Y since our inception six years ago. Since marketers learnt they could segment and target specific generations online, with paid marketing, influencers and organic content, driving measurable return on investment, brands became fascinated by generational trends and the consumer behaviours of those engaging with social media the most. So over the last decade, when it came to large-scale marketing activations, from campaigns to content, talent and events, baby boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964, currently aged 61 to 79 — have largely been overlooked.
According to the latest data, baby boomers hold half of the US’s $140 trillion in household wealth, according to the Federal Reserve (Q3 2024). This is more than double the amount owned by Gen X ($41.26 trillion) and more than fourfold the combined household wealth of millennials ($15.95 trillion). Despite this spending power, analysts agree that the luxury industry stopped targeting older consumers decades ago as social media exploded and the trend cycle shifted, driven by younger generations.
“Baby boomers are the generation that saw the luxury industry really explode in the ’90s and 2000s, enlarging the market, making it aspirational and opening up a new consumer base,” says Federica Levato, analyst at management consultancy Bain Co. “There was the emerging middle and upper-class consumer; luxury opening up to new categories; the introduction of entry-level pieces like perfumes, beauty and eyewear; and entry-level prices. They were the generation that [shaped] the branded luxury industry in many ways, but were then largely forgotten by brands.”
Until now. Amid a luxury slowdown, where aspirational consumers and younger generations have pulled back spending, baby boomers — who are more financially resilient, with robust assets and savings and less exposure to interest rates — are being seen as an increasingly important consumer cohort with a growing share of consumer spending.
Now that brands are focusing on top customers, this generation is making a comeback, Levato adds. “They’re a key generation to target, a key generation to nurture and key to brand strategies again,” she says. But what strategies need to be put in place? And what do baby boomer luxury consumers need?
Harking back to the golden era
To understand baby boomer consumers, it’s important to note their fashion history. Boomers were in their 30s and 40s in the 1990s, arguably the “golden era” of luxury, says Edward Campbell, global luxury strategy lead at marketing firm Dentsu. Tom Ford was at Gucci, John Galliano and Lee McQueen were rising stars, the supermodels were at the height of their powers and American designers like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein hit the mainstream. This generation has a strong connection to the major houses and the history of fashion, before today’s level of saturation and noise, and they continue to be driven by heritage, quality and craftsmanship over newer drivers like trends or social media.
Harking back to their historical references of luxury, baby boomer luxury shoppers are driven by core tenets of luxury like craftsmanship, heritage and quality, rather than flashy marketing. “Painting in broad strokes, a boomer can’t tell you the latest actor or K-pop star a luxury label has worked with, but they can tell you the original codes and DNA of a house,” Campbell says. They’re more likely to have strong allegiances to a handful of brands, based on their heritage.
Carole Williams is a 65-year-old retiree based in Lancashire, England. She buys luxury throughout the year, notably Chanel clothing and accessories, as well as smaller scale high-end British labels like Moloh and Holland Cooper. She bases her purchase decisions on her deep affiliation with brand heritage or quality.
“I’m not influenced by mainstream media, or celebrities. I have admired [Gabrielle] ‘Coco’ Chanel for years. I am fascinated by every aspect of her life, her influences, her take on life, her grit, taste and innovative ways,” Williams says. “The clothes I purchase have proven themselves — in the long run — to be of great value due to the design, quality and how long they last.” Williams owns several of Moloh’s ‘Made in the UK’ wool coats (retailing at more than £1,500), which she attributes to their strong design and quality. Similarly, every baby boomer interviewed for this story noted quality and heritage as key drivers for purchase.
“Boomers are less affected by the ebbs and flows of trends and the seasonality of luxury,” says Campbell. “And that mindset is starting to become more pronounced generally [with micro-trend fatigue among younger audiences]. Brands should communicate provenance and quality to reach every generation.”
The age of (older) influence
But where to communicate? Baby boomers spend a lot less time online than other generations (one hour and seven minutes per day vs a global average of two hours and 21 minutes), and are less likely than other generations to purchase based on advertising (see chart). However, they’re increasingly engaging with social media, particularly to keep up to date with the latest news (64 per cent) and research brands and products (52 per cent), says Stephanie Harlow, analyst at consumer insights platform GWI. Brands should consider that their audience online is changing.
Millennial and Gen Z platforms like Instagram, Reddit and TikTok are growing in popularity among baby boomers, with boomer user numbers growing 19 per cent, 65 per cent and 128 per cent, respectively, since Q4 2020 (globally, outside of China), per GWI. Facebook remains their favourite social media platform by some margin, with around a third of baby boomers surveyed by GWI stating their preference for the platform. The top things baby boomers use Facebook for are to message friends and family (72 per cent), post or share photos (64 per cent), and find funny, entertaining content (54 per cent).
Richard Leong, 65, is an operations director based in Singapore. He purchases luxury fashion a few times a year, from brands like Fendi, Prada and Tod’s, and sometimes finds new brands through magazines and online browsing. “Facebook ads, especially from Farfetch, often introduce me to interesting new brands or brands I’ve purchased before,” he says. But like many boomers, he’s mostly influenced by his children. “I’ve been influenced by my daughters, particularly when it comes to sneakers,” he says. “During Virgil Abloh’s time at Off-White, I picked up a few pairs because they loved the brand… I also picked up a great pair of trousers from Boss recently at the IMM outlet in Singapore — my eldest daughter influenced that purchase, and I was impressed by the fabric quality.”
Since the pandemic, GWI can see significant proportions of baby boomers increasingly using social media “in a more commercial way”, to interact with brands, Harlow says. In 2024, 23 per cent of baby boomers who use social media said their main reason for doing so was to “find products to purchase”. Twenty-one per cent use it to find inspiration for things and to see what’s trending or being talked about, while 23 per cent of baby boomers have bought something following endorsement from a social media influencer in the last year.
“Even though baby boomers tend to see the internet as an opportunity to gain information, we can see how the way baby boomers use social media is changing — it’s becoming more about entertainment and brand engagement,” Harlow says.
“Social media is becoming less siloed by generation,” says Campbell. “You can send certain messages to certain demographics, but by and large, if you have a 30-year-old and 65-year-old on TikTok and they’re really big fans of luxury, they will probably stumble over similar content.”
Menon doesn’t usually follow influencers on social media, but this could be changing. “I recently saw some Celine sunglasses on an influencer on Instagram and subsequently bought them in-store,” she says, noting it was the first time she’d been directly influenced in this way.
In response to the shift, brands in the luxury space have been leaning into older influencers and intergenerational talent in recent years — in campaigns and on social media — playing simultaneously into Gen Z and millennial nostalgia as well as Gen X and boomer relatability. In the last year, we’ve seen Daniel Craig and the late Dame Maggie Smith in Loewe campaigns; Willem Dafoe walking the Prada runway; and Grace Coddington and Martha Stewart in campaigns for Merit Beauty.
“Many younger generations put these actors on a pedestal as icons, playing into their sense of nostalgia, while connecting on a peer-to-peer level with the older consumers,” Campbell says.
Real-life experiences provide connection
When it comes to older influencers, Miu Miu took it one step further last March, inviting baby boomer VIC, 70-year-old Dr Qin to walk its Autumn/Winter 2024 show. Dr Qin, who hails from Shanghai, is one of the most comprehensive Prada collectors on the planet. By turning her into talent, the brand reinforces how much it values its loyal customers of all ages. This level of clienteling is pretty extreme, but speaks to boomers’ deep allegiances to the brands they love. As more and more boomers hit retirement age, they’re an increasingly lonely generation. Loyalty to certain brands and in-person retail experiences can provide a sense of community.
Baby boomer luxury consumer Dr Tina Palattella is a senior lecturer at the University of Salford who regularly buys luxury, including brands like Armani. Apart from books, which she is happy to purchase online, she prefers in-store shopping because of the personal touch. “I could never buy luxury items online because l like to touch and try on what l buy. l like the full experience, the staff know me and what l like — I have a drink, a cake and a nice conversation.”
Clienteling is crucial to baby boomer consumers when shopping, Campbell confirms. “These consumers really have the money to spend. The [top-end] boomer consumer wants a white-glove VIP relationship with a brand. What’s important is that feeling of being looked after, and feeling part of a brand world,” he says. “If you’re a boomer customer, you’re not responding to a random email from the brand. You’re responding to a specific store assistant that you work with.”
“For this generation, it’s about feeling unique again, as they did in the ’90s when the customer base was very tiny, by comparison,” explains Levato. “Now, they need to feel the same kind of personalised experience, the same kind of uniqueness in the experience. And they need to feel considered again.”
Boomer retail preferences vary by territory, Levato adds. “They used to buy at department stores, with floors segmented by price. Now, boomers are being influenced by their millennial children or Gen Z grandchildren, which is shifting some to e-commerce,” she says.
As general consumers (not just of luxury), baby boomers are shopping online more than you might expect, says Harlow. Seventy-four per cent have used a shopping app or website in the last month — this is the same proportion as Gen Z — while 43 per cent of baby boomers have purchased a product or service online in the last week, compared with 35 per cent of Gen Z. In the US, when shopping online, the top things that are important to them are: free shipping (93 per cent), a secure payment process (74 per cent) and a free/easy returns policy (71 per cent).
While this generation turns to online for convenience, on the whole, they prefer to shop in-store when they can (57 per cent vs 43 per cent who say they’d prefer to shop online), per GWI data. Regardless of their affluence, boomer consumers are still sensitive to price, GWI has found. “Despite having more money than younger generations, they are quite savvy,” Harlow adds. “They spend time looking for the right deal.”
When it comes to luxury, boomers might not be pulling back spending, but they enjoy the thrill of the chase when it comes to a good deal. Jan Mauritzen, 74, from Hove, England, is a case in point. She’s been a long-time customer of Issey Miyake and Joseph, but in recent years prefers to travel to London to attend sample sales at sample sales venue The Box, to shop those and other luxury labels. “There’s always a good selection there, and sometimes I can discover new brands, too, for good value,” she says. Mauritzen recently discovered Scandi label Holzweiler at a sample sale and took home four jackets.
Shifting spend to other categories
For Mauritzen and her baby boomer peers, the desire to shop in stores is part of a wider penchant for luxury experiences. While their luxury fashion spend is more resilient than that of other generations, boomers also invest heavily in categories like travel and hospitality, analysts agree.
Leong’s wife Katherine, a 64-year-old managing director, used to collect luxury handbags from Celine, Prada, Miu Miu, Dior, Tod’s and more. But she’s shifted her spending to new categories in recent years. “These days, I don’t shop for luxury fashion as much — just occasional indulgences. At my age, I don’t feel the need to keep up with trends; I’d rather spend it on travel and experiences with my family.”
“Baby boomers have the time and money to really actually invest in experiences, and that’s without a doubt one of the biggest trends that we’re seeing right now,” Campbell says. “Sure, you can spend $10,000 on a new Chanel flap bag, but you can also spend $10,000 on a room on the yacht that the Ritz Carlton launched last year. Maybe if you’re a baby boomer and you’ve got enough Chanel bags, you might opt for the latter. For this generation, luxury is time as well as money. If you’ve retired, and you already have a lot of capital accrued, you know, you’re going to be investing in experiences, maybe even more so than different products.”
There’s also the growing longevity trend, where many boomers are shifting spend to luxury wellness and healthcare as they age, Levato notes.
Brands are aligning by plugging into luxury travel or wellness experiences, either with their own hospitality venues, travel retail on cruises and at luxury hotels, or via engagement with luxury communities like yachting or private jets. “We’re thinking a lot about the role of out of home media and print, to target this generation,” says Campbell. He notes niche print titles like those from US media company Modern Luxury, with scores of titles that each target homeowners in different, affluent regions of the US, including the Hamptons and Aspen. “The demographic of these titles is definitely dominated by boomers. So this more local, topical media and some of these more analogue formats I think are more relevant for older audiences to drive them into stores.”
It checks out, as baby boomers take a keen interest in what’s going on in their local areas, GWI’s Harlow adds. “We see this coming through in their social media preferences. Nextdoor, a platform used to report news and events in local neighbourhoods, is the generation’s most distinctive social platform. It’s also one of their fastest-growing social media platforms, with the number using it (outside of China) growing 27 per cent since Q4 2020.”
Looking ahead, brands will be wise to keep considering the older consumer, with more age-inclusive campaigns, top-notch clienteling and consideration of cross-category luxury. And as boomers increasingly adopt new social media, brands should consider that their audience is changing on platforms like TikTok, and focus on universally influential themes such as quality, craftsmanship and heritage.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
