20 Quintessential Items that Endure

The lasting symbols that still define their categories in 2025.

Jul 08, 2025

One of the first books I fell in love with as a kid was Quintessence: The Quality of Having It (1983) by Betty Cornfeld and Owen Edwards. A coffee table classic, it’s a celebration of over 60 objects that define their category—items that embody exactly what they’re supposed to be. Sometimes that means luxury (a Steinway piano), but more often it’s about identity, not price: like an iconic canvas tote or a classic sneaker over its pricey designer knockoff. As Cornfeld and Edwards put it, “We get excited about them, not because they are the best, but because they have an elusive combination of style, class, and utility.”

The authors Owen Edwards and Betty Cornfeld overlooking Central Park.

Forty-two years later, many of the items still hold up—a quiet triumph of the book’s thesis. But plenty have faded or changed, warranting an update: Budweiser has become political, Camel cigarettes are no longer a daily habit, checkered cabs have been replaced by Ubers and Waymos, and J&J baby powder has been mired in lawsuits. Polaroid cameras are now more eccentricity than utility, soda has taken a strange turn (does anyone regularly drink Coca-Cola Classic anymore?), the Ghurka duffle is a rare sight in airports, and Montblanc Diplomats and #2 pencils have largely given way to e-signatures and keyboards.

Still, there are echoes between the early 1980s and today. Inflation was top of mind, and consumption was on full display—we traded Gordon Gekko (kinda hot) for Jeff Bezos (barf). In the introduction of Quintessence the authors write

“One of the great dilemmas of our age is that while the powerful magic of advertising makes us want more, what we end up with, we love less. Constantly promised satisfaction, unable to find it, we become drifters from one failed possession to the next.”

Or as Barney Choi put it in Your Friends & Neighbors:

Lately, I’ve been thinking more about the concept of quintessence—especially as everything starts to feel more expensive, more scarce, more saturated. Our capitalist desires have seeped deeper into everyday life: youth sports, school admissions, even the idea that one nice thing isn’t enough—you need a whole collection.

But the burnout of more more more inevitably sparks backlash, and I sense a shift underway when it comes to how we consume. So I put together an updated—and extremely truncated—version of the original list: items that still feel quintessential today, or have reached that status since 1983.

It’s not exhaustive, not definitive, not always affordable, and definitely not a shopping catalog—but hopefully, it’s fun to browse.