What Luxury Can Learn from TikTok
TikTok is no longer just a channel. In 2025, it functions as a cultural operating system where aesthetics, behavior, and identity evolve in real time. With Gen Z and Millennials on track to control two thirds of luxury spend by 2026, the platform has become a cultural filter for what prestige looks and feels like to the next generation.
TikTok as the taste engine of 2025
A19-year-old in Milan films herself unboxing a vintage Chanel bag in silence. No voiceover. Just the sound of tissue paper, the soft click of the clasp, the camera lingering on the quilted leather. The video gets 2.3 million views. In the comments: 'This is my dream bag,' 'Where did you find it?' 'I need the link.' No brand involvement. No paid partnership. Just pure cultural transmission.This is how luxury moves in 2025.
A new study surveying over 3,000 luxury consumers across the UK, U.S., France, and Italy confirms what insiders already sense: TikTok has become the dominant engine of discovery commerce for luxury brands. Around two-thirds of first-time luxury buyers now say their first exposure came from social media rather than traditional channels, while 38% discover brands via UGC and 32% through creator videos. Additionally, 26% of luxury shoppers wait for creator reviews before buying, nearly one in four customers say TikTok trends led them to purchase vintage or second‑hand luxury, and 59% report self-reward as their primary purchase motivation. This is also reflected in a 110% surge for hashtags like #selfgifting.
In short: TikTok isn’t just influencing what’s hot, now it’s rewriting how luxury is discovered, trusted, and purchased.
@valentino It’s all very cherry, with @Amelia gray for #ValentinoFall25 ♬ suono originale - Valentino
TikTok's storytelling blueprint for luxury
The way stories are told on TikTok in 2025 is fundamentally different from traditional brand narratives. Luxury is being redefined in the process. From identity performance to real-time co-creation, the platform has developed a new storytelling grammar.
Here’s what luxury brands need to know:
The POV format has become one of TikTok’s most powerful storytelling tools. Not because it’s trendy, but because it creates immersive identity scripts. Whether it’s “POV: You’re the new intern at Louis Vuitton HQ” or “rich mom summer in Lake Como,” these short clips place the viewer inside a fantasy with emotional texture. For luxury brands, the message is clear: don’t just show the product, show the feeling of living the life around it.
Creator-led credibility has overtaken campaign polish as the new trust signal. Today’s buyers don’t want perfection, they want proof. Luxury shoppers are using TikTok threads for authenticity checks, sizing advice, and peer recommendations. A 113% YoY increase in comments on luxury fashion content shows that brands need to engage in a dialogue rather than top-down storytelling. Micro-creators now explain pricing, materials, and styling logic in the tone of a trusted friend, while comment sections serve as live feedback loops for sizing advice, authenticity checks, and cultural alignment. Luxury brands must stop speaking in monologue and start empowering the kinds of voices their audience already trusts.
Remix culture has turned prestige into a participatory system. From archive Chanel pieces reimagined to the boldest remix trends that reference and reinterpret high fashion, TikTok has made luxury codes open-source. Culture is now something to be co-authored, not controlled. The brands that thrive will be the ones that allow their symbols to be played with and recontextualized without losing their soul.
In contrast to the loud, attention-grabbing energy often associated with social media, silent reviews and sensory-first storytelling have emerged in the past few years as a powerful countercurrent. These are videos where texture, craftsmanship, and emotion are conveyed through sound design, slow-motion detail shots, and deliberate stillness and they still grab attention. A silent unboxing set to ambient music can evoke more longing than a scripted ad. This is where luxury shines: Not through explanation, but through sensation.
TikTok’s format also favors short-form episodic storytelling, where content is consumed as a series of moments rather than one hero spot. Luxury brands like Valentino or Loewe are embracing this rhythm, offering glimpses into atelier work, event prep, or curated outfit pairings as part of a larger narrative arc. TikTok has created “snackable intimacy”, a sense of closeness that builds over time. Think less in campaigns, and more in collectible drops of content.
Transparency now carries emotional premium through behind-the-scenes and ‘factory to consumer’ content. Far from diluting brand mystique, this approach creates an emotional premium by inviting viewers into the brand’s inner sanctum. Audiences are drawn to artisan spotlights, founder perspectives, or day-in-the-life footage from the studio floor. What once lived only in craft documentaries now thrives on TikTok in real time.
Finally, livestream shopping and real-time product reveals are reshaping how exclusivity is experienced. These aren’t passive product showcases, but interactive spectacles with community chat, limited releases, and creator hosts who know how to generate urgency. TikTok’s livestream formats blend entertainment, education, and commerce into a single moment. Luxury brands no longer have to choose between intimacy and scale, instead the runway is now participatory.
@dior Let’s hear it for the Dior boys 👏
♬ son original - Dior
Strategic Lessons for Luxury
True leadership now means mastering these formats above, not just experimenting with them. Brands need to own the new grammar of cultural participation and TikTok is where those rules are being written, challenged, and remixed every day:
Self-expression trumps status signaling
Luxury buyers today invest in brands to tell their own story, not just to showcase logos. Movements like #selfgifting and the rise of “quiet luxury” already reflected a deeper hunger for emotional authenticity and personal resonance over loud branding. TikTok’s highly visual and narrative-driven environment magnifies this shift by spotlighting intimate, relatable luxury moments at scale.
Participation over broadcast
In 2025, brands build cultural capital by engaging with remix culture in intentional, creative ways. The most magnetic luxury brands don’t just perform, but also invite creative collaboration and empower communities to co-create, all while maintaining unmistakable poise and editorial direction. This balance between playfulness and prestige is the new luxury dynamic.
Data-driven agility
Luxuries now must move at the pace of AI-powered trends without losing brand essence. The key is not hyper-speed reaction but strategic discernment and filtering cultural noise to amplify relevant microtrends that align authentically with brand DNA. This data-backed agility is the new baseline for cultural fluency.
Transparency as a new prestige
In 2025, revealing craftsmanship, sustainability efforts, and ecommerce initiatives is no longer optional, it’s a credibility imperative. Behind-the-scenes storytelling deepens brand mystique by connecting consumers to authentic origins and values, making transparency not a risk but a premium signal of trust and value.
TikTok is the social stage, not the only entry point
While gaming and immersive digital worlds are emerging as the new foundational luxury entry points for Gen Alpha consumers, TikTok serves as the powerful cultural stage where those discoveries ignite. Luxury isn’t just found on TikTok, but it is here where it’s amplified, remixed, and woven into the fabric of social culture, transforming initial spark into widespread aspiration and conversation.
Dominating TikTok without posting
Chanel and Hermès take a distinctive approach on TikTok by maintaining official or acknowledged presences without actively posting content themselves. Instead, their cultural influence thrives through fan videos, creator remixes, and community-driven conversations, which fuel exclusivity and mystique. This silent strategy shows that luxury impact on social platforms can be built not only through direct brand messaging but also by empowering passionate creator communities to shape the narrative, creating a magnetic aura of aspiration and FOMO.
@louisvuitton 24 hours in Paris. #TanSuan #LVStyleDiarySpringEdition ♬ son original - Louis Vuitton
Relevance is earned within culture
In 2025, luxury is being decoded on TikTok. The platform has become a testing ground for new cultural norms, visual languages, and emotional touchpoints that are reshaping what prestige looks and feels like. The most future-facing brands aren't chasing trends or mimicking formats. They're building fluency in a system where storytelling is participatory, fast-moving, and deeply sensory.
What's coming in 2026? Watch for the convergence. TikTok will increasingly serve as the cultural amplifier for luxury discoveries that begin elsewhere, in gaming worlds like Roblox and Fortnite, in AI-generated styling tools, in phygital retail environments where Gen Alpha is learning what luxury means before they ever touch a product. The brands that win won't just dominate one platform. They'll architect storytelling ecosystems where a virtual Valentino gown worn in a game becomes a TikTok styling moment, which drives demand for the physical piece. The question isn't whether luxury belongs on TikTok. It's whether luxury can move fast enough to stay fluent as the rules keep changing.
