A View From the Edge of Luxury

This discrepancy has been bugging me since I first read the data, and as I wrangled how to explain it in my head I realised it’s not so much a gap in intention but more about a gap in permission.

The scale surrounding that gap is not small. The Global Wellness Institute puts the global wellness economy on track to approach £7.3 trillion ($9.8 trillion, €8.61 trillion) by 2029. In a recent conversation with the CEO of Kerzner International, Philippe Zuber, he told me,

‘We’re only now beginning to realise that we are our most valuable asset. It’s you. It’s not the house. It’s not the car. It’s not your partner; it’s your body.’

‘84% of women say their health is their most valued asset – and yet, only 18% will actually spend money on it in a meaningful way’

Capital is moving into longevity, diagnostics and preventative medicine faster than most industries can absorb it. Yet women, who do much of that spending, are nearly twice as likely as men to call identical spending on health an ‘indulgence’ rather than an ‘investment’, and only a third will use the word ‘investment’ at all.

Almost two-thirds (61%) of women aged 18–45 say they are expected to age well without ever being given the tools to do so. As one of the experts we spoke to, Dr Florence Comite puts it:

‘The women’s health conversation has expanded, but people recognise they don’t know what they don’t know’

In the context of this column, I spend much of my time cogitating on luxury’s habit of trusting a name against the newer, harder habit of demanding a statistic. Luxury has always let cachet stand in for proof – a maison’s history, a founder’s story, a price tag doing the work of evidence. But health will not let it. More than half of women – 56% – say they cannot tell a product built on real science from one that has simply borrowed its language. 57% say they work harder than they should to find health information they trust, and 72% believe the industry would rather chase its next innovation than prove the value of what it has already sold them.

This is why The Future Laboratory built the P.O.W.E.R. Index with LYMA and three clinicians: Dr Florence Comite, Dr Elissa Epel and Dr Stephanie Kuku. We asked five questions of any health purchase: is it Proven, does it change Outcomes, does it understand the Whole-System of a woman’s body, is it Empowering, does it compound into Return. As Dr Kuku explains,

‘Women already know the foundations of good health. The real opportunity is helping them turn that knowledge into actions they can sustain, in doing the due diligence in a crowded market’

We modelled the Index less on a wellness score than a credit rating: not proof that something is good, but is a shared starting point for judging whether it deserves the money asked of it.

You can see what changes once that standard exists. LYMA’s own laser technology has published RNA-sequencing trials in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal recording a 103% increase in skin elasticity in 30 days. Neko Health reads more than 50 biomarkers in a 15-minute scan, staged with the calm of a premium retail space rather than a clinic. Clinical proof, not brand cachet, is what every age group now claims to want, rising to 86% among women over 55. Nor is this about appearance: 72% choose a treatment that changes how they see themselves over one that changes how others see them, and two-thirds value the confidence of a healthy body over a flattering mirror, rising to 73% among Gen X women.

As we said when we launched the P.O.W.E.R. Index report, ‘clinically proven’, ‘expert-backed’ and ‘science-led’ are about to stop being claims a brand can simply make, and start being standards it has to demonstrate. That is no small shift for an industry accustomed to being taken on trust because it charges enough to deserve it.