While that might work in the short term, aloofness may not be a sustainable, long-term strategy for brands navigating a fractured consumer landscape. The emotional undercurrent here matters more than the factual accuracy of the TikTok claims, argues Dr. Thomaï Serdari, director of NYU Stern’s Luxury & Retail MBA programme. “Consumers are angry. They focus on the price tag… and are confused about the increases,” she says. That confusion, Serdari adds, stems from a fundamental lack of understanding around what luxury truly means and what it entails: “how it is produced, where, by whom, and why the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

Serdari believes this has created “a powerful trifecta of emotions — anger, confusion, mistrust — which makes consumers vulnerable to propaganda.” Brands, she argues, need to get ahead of this.

However, the strategy shouldn’t be defensive, instead, brands should use this as a springboard for more intentional consumer education. “Luxury brands need to reinforce their educational initiatives… They need to better explain what it means to create a piece of craftsmanship rather than simply and quickly assemble a product that looks like someone else’s work.”

Rebuilding trust

Education can help fill the knowledge gap, but it won’t restore trust on its own. In a climate where trust is eroding and scrutiny is rising, luxury brands can’t just clarify their value — they have to reassert it, emotionally and strategically.

So what should brands do? Analysts agree that price cuts would likely backfire. “Effectively, it is an admission that luxury is bad value for money,” says Saunders. Instead, he sees opportunity for brands to double down on their core differentiators: “what luxury brands should focus on is scarcity, their quality, their desirable designs, and the experience they offer consumers. Those are the things that underpin a lot of value in the luxury sector.”

Reasserting value also requires a sharper brand strategy — one that closes the narrative gaps that allowed distrust to grow in the first place. Dennis believes that the fragility of consumer perception wasn’t just inevitable — in many ways, it’s a wound created by the brands themselves. “Consumers are starved for clarity in a space built on ambiguity. Brands have left enough gaps in the story for others to fill in, and now they’re facing the consequences.”

What’s next?

Experts agree that for brands navigating the complexities of today’s consumer landscape, the viral reaction to manufacturers’ TikToks is less about supply chain visibility and more about who holds the power to shape perception. “Your consumers aren’t simply buyers — they’re also content creators, commentators and influencers who shape the narrative around your brand in real-time,” says Dennis. That reality creates both a vulnerability and an opportunity.

“Your consumers aren’t simply buyers — they’re also content creators, commentators and influencers who shape the narrative around your brand in real-time.”Sophia Dennis, a luxury fashion creator

As Serdari puts it, brands must be focused on leading with clarity — now, more than ever. “With the rise in numbers of people who don’t know how to think critically and how to double-check the veracity of the media they consume, brands need to be the most authentic, transparent, and truthful they can be in how they operate internally and what they project externally when they speak to their consumers.”

In 2025, as narrative control moves further out of brands’ hands, the question becomes who holds the authority to define value in an era of consumer decentralisation. Experts agree that power lies in simplicity. Instead of delivering louder messaging or bigger campaigns, brands should be focused on crafting narratives that build clarity and transparency with consumers, while possessing enough cultural fluency to earn trust in a media ecosystem defined by speed, scrutiny and scepticism.

For an industry long sustained by scarcity and opacity, Waller argues that the next wave of competitive advantage will belong to those who are willing to meet consumers where they are: “in terms of what luxury buyers are craving most from brands right now, I think that transparency more than anything — even if that does mean a little bit of vulnerability [from brands].”

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