Luxury has always promised quality, craftsmanship and permanence. But what happens when making products last conflicts with the need to keep selling more? This panel brings together fashion designer Maria Grachvogel, Gemma Metheringham, founder of The Elephant in my Wardrobe, and designer Noah Bier, co-founder of Makers Cabinet, in conversation with Shaun Borstrock.

Together they question one of the central contradictions within contemporary luxury: if something is genuinely designed to last a lifetime, be repaired and perhaps eventually passed on, how does that coexist with a business model built around constant growth and consumption? The conversation explores quality, planned obsolescence, repairability, secondhand fashion, materials and emotional durability, alongside the pressure placed on designers and brands to continually create and sell something new.

Gemma recalls being told during her career as a fashion creative director that the quality of the company’s coats was actually a commercial problem: customers liked them and kept them for too long. Maria presents a radically different approach, creating seasonless clothing designed to remain part of a woman’s wardrobe for years, while Noah discusses designing everyday objects specifically to be repairable and last for generations.

Ultimately, the discussion asks whether longevity can genuinely become part of luxury’s future -or whether the industry’s dependence on perpetual growth makes that promise impossible to keep. Recorded at The Luxury Conversation 2026, at Goldsmiths University London.