Zirui Yang has been obsessive about procuring since junior excessive. “Clothes, shoes and accessories — and they always had to be branded,” the 22-year-old stated scholar. “It started with Nike and Adidas, then moved on to Gucci and Balenciaga.”
But since beginning faculty in 2022, his retail remedy has been much less about large manufacturers and extra about purchases with “emotional value, like small accessories, plush toys, fragrances and travel,” stated Yang, who lives in Nanjing, japanese China. “I like ritual, novelty and things that have a unique identity.”
So a lot for the logo-mania that, for years, outlined China’s Gen Z and millennial buyers. Yet, towards a backdrop of job insecurity and sluggish post-Covid financial restoration, the nation’s new luxury buyers are nonetheless self-soothing in a well-known manner: by means of consumption.
Young city-dwellers are spending extra on “lucky” equipment, crystals and Zen-inspired style and fragrances in an obvious bid for emotional launch, nevertheless short-term. They are additionally forking out on ostensibly non secular experiences: weekends at Sichuan’s Buddhist website Mount Emei, restorative wellness retreats and frequent visits to the numerous temples that dot the nation.
The financial system of “xuanxue,” or non secular mysticism, has boomed in latest years, with a spread of value factors. And it’s altering the face of retail. On standard Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, the hashtag #xuanxue has been seen over 5 billion occasions up to now.
So, what are people shopping for and what does it say about at this time’s China?
At the extra inexpensive finish of the market, demand for objects like fengshui-friendly “energy enhancing” jewellery has surged. E-commerce information cited by the Chinese-language Singaporean newspaper Lianhe Zaobao confirmed that year-on-year gross sales of crystal bracelets jumped by 320% in China in 2024, accounting for greater than a 3rd of the nation’s estimated 3-billion-yuan ($444 million) on-line crystal market. And whereas China’s private luxury market has contracted by as a lot as 5% in 2025, in keeping with consulting agency Bain & Company, sure high-value objects are more and more standard in netizen lore.
Across Chinese social media platforms, there’s a complete luxury non secular codex: At 34,100 yuan ($5,000), a Cartier Juste un Clou nail bracelet in 18-karat white gold purportedly protects you from misfortune and retains unhealthy people away. An 18-karat rose gold and diamond Tiffany & Co. “T” bangle, for 47,300 yuan ($7,000), is assumed to keep off awful bosses and open new job alternatives. Qeelin’s Wulu jewellery assortment — original in the form of auspicious bottle gourds — supposedly brings good household fortune, whereas Vivienne Westwood’s orb necklaces are thought to profit your profession. (With the nation’s youth unemployment hovering over 16%, perhaps Gen Z feels it wants all the assistance it may possibly get.)
Meanwhile, Van Cleef & Arpels’ standard Alhambra “four leaf clover” assortment, which begins at over 14,100 yuan ($2,000) for a easy pendant necklace, has lengthy served twin functions in China as each a standing image and a fortunate allure. The differing inlay supplies — akin to mom of pearl, malachite and onyx — have been given totally different mystical meanings by social media customers (serving to with the wearer’s profession, love life, friendships or funds, for instance).
While the joys of splurging on a chunk of effective luxury jewellery may really feel like a non secular expertise, it’s hardly a path to long-lasting interior peace. But the concept of luxury equipment serving as emotional armor amid financial uncertainty clearly resonates with shoppers and marketeers capitalizing on the phenomenon.
Spirituality-inspired style tendencies have grown on-line, too. A hashtag that interprets to “Zen style” has reached over 270 million views on Xiaohongshu, with posts referencing every part from the flowy silhouettes of high-end Chinese designer Uma Wang to low cost robe-like outfits offered on Taobao and different e-commerce websites. Spiritual quick style could be an oxymoron, however shoppers’ philosophical interrogation might not at all times run that deep.
Young people are not simply paying for a product, however “paying for a form of self-definition and an emotional container,” stated Linda Yu, a normal supervisor at advertising and marketing company Red Ant Asia, which is headquartered in Shanghai. “Some brands have recently shifted spiritual consumption from the margins to the mainstream.”
Mainstream client manufacturers like Lululemon and the espresso chain M Stand have launched spirituality-themed advertising and marketing campaigns in China in latest years. Bubble Tea model Molly Tea’s collaboration with a 1,700-year-old temple in Hangzhou featured co-branded cup sleeves, fridge magnets and perfume diffusers. Burger King even partnered with the Taoist website on Mount Longhu for Lunar New Year, with a “God of Wealth” figurine out there, for an additional 38 yuan ($5.62), with quick meals meal offers.
Local luxury labels have been considerably subtler, eschewing apparent iconography whereas integrating Chinese philosophies into their branding. Among them is the viral purse model Songmont, whose podcast asks well-known administrators or actors to debate subjects like self-acceptance and creativity in contemplative two-hour episodes.
“Songmont doesn’t sell luck per se — it sells peace of mind that comes from slowing down,” stated Yu, who believes the model’s prospects “aren’t buying a logo, they’re buying into a spiritual identity.” She added: “Its designs draw inspiration from the curved eaves of ancient Shanxi architecture or the lines of the Yellow River floodplain, and their marketing is deliberately slow.”
China is formally an atheist state the place fewer than 10% of people formally determine with a faith, in keeping with a Pew Research Center report. But when the definition of faith was widened to incorporate questions on “spirituality, customs and superstitions,” the position of faith in people’s lives grew considerably, the assume tank stated. For instance, a 2018 survey, cited in Pew’s report, discovered that 47% of Chinese adults imagine in fengshui, the place the positioning of objects or buildings in relation to at least one one other can carry happiness and success.
Praying at temples for wealth and success is a standard apply, even for individuals who aren’t particularly non secular. And ascribing talismanic properties to jewellery is a practice courting again 1000’s of years.
This might, in half, clarify why clearly business model collaborations — like quick meals chains working with temples or jewelers and style labels capitalizing on spiritualism — haven’t sparked the form of backlash they could anticipate to in the West.
Chinese state media, which generally displays Communist Party-held attitudes or positions on points, has expressed skepticism in direction of the development, typically warning shoppers on the dangers of being scammed. “Turning to xuanxue can provide some stress relief. Becoming obsessed with, or even superstitious about it, can lead people astray,” a Marxist scholar is quoted as saying in a latest article printed by China Youth Daily.
Temples and retreats
Thirty-two-year-old Zach Liu shouldn’t be notably non secular, but he and his spouse spent their honeymoon touring to temples round Dali, in China’s Yunnan province. He spent about 100 yuan ($15) on a prayer plaque asking for his household’s good well being on the historical Chongsheng Temple. Hundreds of different young temple-goers had the identical thought, he stated, recalling that many fellow guests bought blessed charms and beads on-site.
“When there’s growing pressure (in life), people tend to visit temples to take a breather, even if it’s temporary,” stated Liu, who’s initially from Suzhou, a metropolis simply west of Shanghai and works as a guide for a college. “Self-soothing and spiritual enrichment is a large part of it, alongside engagement with culture, beautiful scenery and history.”
In latest years, China’s temple financial system, which incorporates income from associated merchandise, has been extensively reported to be value round 100 billion yuan (14.8 billion) yearly. Growing demand is partly pushed by the proliferation of temple content material on social media, in keeping with Liu.
“We see so much online content, both from the temples’ accounts and influencer content on Xiaohongshu,” he stated.
Influencer and jewellery designer She Ze Lin, 25, is a case in level. She recurrently visits temples for inspiration — and content material, after all — and now brings teams of followers to totally different non secular websites round China.
According to She, there are two essential varieties of young people making temple tourism so standard at this time: Those who’ve already achieved “a certain level of material comfort, and seek to find release in the spiritual realm” and people seeking to “cope with the uncertainty of reality, alleviate anxiety, manage job pressures, salary concerns, romantic and marital pressures, and the many choices and uncertainties of the future.” In different phrases, each the haves and the have-nots.
“Given that many young people’s social circles nowadays revolve around topics like astrology, MBTI (Myers Briggs) or fortune-telling, it’s almost as if these practices serve as social tools now,” stated She, who’s from Guangdong province’s Chaozhou area.
Similar motives could also be powering the fast-growing marketplace for divination, astrology and tarot studying apps. The Tencent-backed Cece astrology app has been downloaded round 24 million occasions in keeping with information shared with NCS by market intelligence agency Sensor Tower. People are additionally paying for on-line astrologers to sooth emotions of uncertainty and hopelessness, with some even sending small funds (some as little as a yuan or two) by way of their smartphones for “digital prayers” throughout temple livestreams.
Like in the West, luxury spending continues to shift from materials items to emotional and sensory experiences, a welcome growth for the wellness sector. Sound baths — that includes meditative singing bowls, gongs and wind chimes — have popped up in central Shanghai; Upper House inns in mainland China now supply full-day wellness retreats that embody crystal “soul reading” classes.
Energy Alchemy, a luxury five-day retreat in Bali priced at 42,000 yuan ($6,200), is aimed toward rich millennial Chinese ladies and contains workshops on breathwork and reiki, a Japanese non secular therapeutic apply. Its founder Weiley Chen Walter, who launched the enterprise after 15 years in fintech, says that “many modern Chinese women are beginning to ask deeper questions around identity, emotional inheritance, burnout and self-worth — questions that previous generations were rarely allowed to openly ask.”
Young ladies are more and more talking out on-line “about the desire not just for outward success, but for inner peace,” she added.
This all comes amid fast technological, social and financial change in China. Liu stated participation in the non secular financial system helps “mitigate feelings of uncertainty” because the “traditional pathway of studying hard for college, then graduating, and finding a high-paying job just no longer holds true for many young people,” he added. “With the arrival of AI, for instance, many are unsure if their current jobs will still be relevant in the near future.”
This pursuit of interior peace, whether or not by means of holidays or symbolic purchases, might mirror a technology attempting to purchase calm in a rustic the place certainty is itself a luxury. The non secular financial system shouldn’t be essentially about outright religion, however reasonably ritual, emotion and a way of company.
“After all, we all spend money to buy happiness,” stated Yang, the faculty scholar. “We exchange the fruits of our labor for emotional fulfillment.”