Hard to earn, personal to maintain, and impossible to fake—wellness is the ultimate status symbol. Today, luxury belongs to brands that deliver real health value through function, care, and long-term impact.

Rob Gregg is the CEO and Founder of STAND+, a footwear brand built around long-term health, not hype. We sat down to discuss how brands think about wellness, value, and what today’s consumers really want.

Status, shifted: "Status is tied around inaccessibility," says Gregg. "What’s inaccessible for any human being is perfect health." Where price once defined prestige, luxury now centers on wellness—because it’s harder to reach.

"There’s something in human nature that wants what’s hard to attain," he explains. "Health can’t be bought, it has to be earned." And perfect health? "I don't think it's an achievable goal, which makes it a really interesting mountain to climb."

Health as an investment: Unlike traditional status symbols, wellness can’t be gifted, copied, or shortcut. Its value comes from effort. "You have to earn it for yourself in your habits, your lifestyle, your daily choices," says Gregg. For brands, this means supporting a process, not just selling a product. 

"With health as top of mind, it means that people are investing in something, not buying something," Gregg explains. The ones that win aren’t offering instant results. "The brands who will win in the long run are the ones who serve the consumers' well-being," says Gregg.