This is not a hate piece towards Enfants Riches Déprimés or its founder Henry Levy. But there is a larger conversation surrounding this brand that needs to happen.

For those unfamiliar, ERD is a luxury fashion label founded in 2012 by Henry Levy. The brand merges dark imagery, punk aesthetics, aristocratic references, religious symbolism, and themes of addiction, trauma, depression, and decay. Levy himself has been open about his struggles with drug abuse, childhood trauma, and mental health. Born into a wealthy family in Atlanta, he once stated, “I want to create the punk version of Hermès.”

And that statement alone explains the contradiction at the center of the brand.

Because at this point, calling ERD a “punk brand” gives the brand too much credit while simultaneously dismantling everything punk culture actually stood for. Punk was never just about looking disturbing, offensive, or anti-social. Punk was rooted in resistance. Anti-authoritarianism. Anti-racism. Anti-consumerism. Community. DIY ethics. Fighting systems of oppression rather than repackaging them into luxury products.

That’s where the disconnect begins.

Using imagery historically associated with oppression, racism, fascism, and violence against minority groups — then selling those garments for thousands of dollars — feels like the complete opposite of punk culture. And no, this is not about being “too edgy.” Punk has always embraced discomfort, confrontation, and provocation. But there is a difference between challenging systems and aesthetically profiting from the imagery those systems created.

To use your own hardship and trauma to build a brand is one thing. Artists have every right to interpret pain however they choose. But when a brand begins selling products like the “Racist Uncle Loafer” or garments featuring Nazi-related imagery, it raises a larger question: at what point does provocation stop being satire and start becoming normalization?

Because whether intentional or not, these products still circulate harmful imagery back into culture. And when those ideas are transformed into luxury commodities, they risk becoming detached from the real historical violence attached to them.

What makes this conversation even more complicated is that ERD has actually done an incredible job at building a world around the brand. The references are layered. The garments pull heavily from early 20th century European aristocracy, pre-war decadence, addiction, collapse, and cultural decay. Hebrew text and Jewish imagery appear throughout the collections, reflecting Levy’s own heritage. But even then, the brand often feels less interested in the victims of history and more fascinated with the aesthetic atmosphere surrounding tragedy itself.

And that’s an important distinction.

Because what exactly is being romanticized here? The people? Or the destruction around them?

ERD often presents the beauty of collapse without fully confronting the human cost left behind. It shows the world before persecution, before extermination, before devastation — but rarely the aftermath itself. And when genocide, fascism, addiction, or abuse become visual language detached from material reality, they risk becoming aesthetic textures instead of historical truths.

More importantly, what is ERD actually contributing to punk culture beyond the aesthetic of rebellion?

Historically, punk movements actively fought against racism, sexism, fascism, and systems of oppression. Anti-racist punk movements emerged in the 1980s to confront neo-Nazi infiltration within punk spaces. Riot Grrrl movements in the 1990s challenged sexism and misogyny within music and culture. Grassroots movements like Food Not Bombs organized around feeding the homeless and rejecting state violence and hyper-consumerism. Punk was not just clothing! It was action, politics, and community.

ERD does not operate within that framework.

Instead, it reflects something much more modern: the commodification of rebellion itself. The transformation of subculture into luxury identity. The idea that people want the visual language of anti-establishment culture without the discomfort, politics, sacrifice, or community attached to it.

And maybe that’s why the brand resonates so strongly right now.

Because modern fashion no longer sells ideology. It sells atmosphere.

So if you support ERD, that’s completely your choice. The craftsmanship, world-building, and visual identity are undeniably compelling. But please stop calling it punk.

It isn’t punk.

It’s a luxury fashion brand wearing punk’s skin as a selling point.