THOUGHTS ON THE WORLD OF LUXURY AT LARGE
I will never forget the first time someone asked me the question (it was circa 1990). My husband and I had just arrived on Martha’s Vineyard, and we ran into a fellow Harvard Law School grad. After the usual air kisses and humble brags about work, she asked when we had arrived on the island. And where we were staying. Then came “The Question”: Do you rent or own?
Prognosis: negative. I have been mourning the loss of one of the great luxury brands in my closet: Michael Kors. It used to be one of my go-to ready-to-wear brands: I loved the mash-up of classic Americana and jet-set European sensibilities, the use of color and texture, and those shrugs! I loved those cute little fine-gauge knit shrugs. I still have approximately fifteen of them in multiple colors, and they have saved me many times from the horror of exposing my upper arms. We adore you, Michelle Obama, but you have raised the upper-arm bar so high that when we consider going to the gym to pump iron, it seems futile, so we just shrug and put on a shrug instead.
Everyone has their favorite technology: Amazon’s Echo, Snapchat, HTC’s Vive headset. Mine remains my smartphone. Specifically, the features on my Apple that save me time and aggravation.
Ah, the art of the tease. The first glimpse, just a flash of something amazing, with the promise of more to come. But not just yet. Wonders to be imagined and dreamed of, perhaps someday to become real. Anticipation can be delicious, in luxury purchasing as well as in love.
With Asia forecast to have 1 billion affluent consumers within the next decade, it’s a rather pressing issue to understand the nuances of what passes for luxury there. In the first quarter of this year, LVMH reported that 37% of its global revenue came from Asia. The region is huge and its cultures varied, so it’s foolhardy to make broad statements about the nature of Asian luxury. That said, taking a look at Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai versus New York, London, Paris and Milan, some interesting themes emerge. Here are a few things I’ve observed in my travels:
