Made in China, Felt in Paris: The Luxury Debate We’re Getting Wrong
The recent hullabaloo about luxury fashion and why we are getting the fundamentals wrong.
What a luxury it is to be eternally young irrespective of our age! This is a takeaway from The Luxury Strategy and figuratively, it is about hope, dreams, possibilities and limitlessness. How does that happen you might ask. Well, it happens by how one feels within, and to do that, by doing whatever needs to be done outside!
A lot of our behavior is tied to how we fundamentally have this need to feel important, which is closely linked to our need to feel special.
The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to feel important, said John Dewey, one of the founding thinkers of functional psychology. A lot of our behavior is tied to how we fundamentally have this need to feel important, which is closely linked to our need to feel special. What are the attributes of special? Being special is usually attributed to being unique, noteworthy or of extraordinary quality. And that is where two important distinctions start emerging, that being special (a) is not just about a quantifiable value, and (b) it can mean different things to different people.
To quote, J N Kapferer and V Bastien from The Luxury Strategy, ‘The current confusion masks a profound reality: luxury does exist, it is not just a trade, restricted to some cars or fashion accessories, but a different and global way of understanding a customer and of managing a business.’ Tangentially, luxury is a way of life and the value it offers is subjective depending upon how each of us thinks. I know people who have seen the minimalist lives of folks in the mountain villages of Sikkim and refer to that as a luxury. Directly, it is how a company understands the value of a customer on the basis of their emotions, cutting across different boundaries, and making a business out of it. That is how a luxury brand establishes its identity on a theme that is only understood emotionally and that too, is perfectly between the customer and the brand.
Value can be based on usability and it can be based on feeling.
Value can be tangible and intangible. Both are important and one type can compensate for another and both can make a person feel the same thing. Value can be based on usability and it can be based on feeling. A luxury bag can be valuable to me for the way I can use it because of its superior craftsmanship, materials and design, with every minute detail thought through making it useful for me during my travels. It can also be valuable for me because it makes me feel special, stand out and more confident. The value may be created as a result of both, and in this interplay, which can often get nuanced, is where brands and marketers play. Good brands make sure they give you fully at least one type of value!
The value of a product can also go deeper and that essentially makes it priceless. To give an example, the book 'Build To Last’ that my dog selected from the shelf and chewed on is priceless for me. There are other ways to create this pricelessness and some brands do that well, before a customer buys the product and their dog chews on it that is, and that is nearly never with logic, but with emotions. Being difficult to get is one such way.
There is another layer of complexity that comes in: the influences from others. It also shapes how we feel towards a product. It is the influence of peers, celebrities and influencers, or even what we learn from our family members.
Putting together all the above, what does it really mean? Luxury is a relationship between the values and emotions of humans and how they play out. It is a culture. It goes way beyond the material value of a product, or its scarcity. It is actually not even a lot about the tangible aspects of a product. It is about the intangible and the complex interplay between humans and their environment.
Now, this whole discussion about Hermes bags made in China is one-sided. There is this impulsive need we have to see things in black and white and reach conclusions. The veracity of the claims aside, we cannot look at the value of the Hermes brand only through the materials and the craftsmanship. It is so much more. At the end of the day, no one forces us to buy a product from a brand! The value of the Hermes bag will not change for those who understand what it means to them, even if it was produced in China in the way it was talked about.
There are losers in the game, and they purchase luxury without understanding what it means to them.
So does that justify spending so much on a bag when it’s produced at a fraction of the price? Not always and there are losers in the game, and they purchase luxury without understanding what it means to them. Ask yourself, what creates value for you? As an example, for me, it’s refinement and being uncommon. If that creates value for me, I would be stupid to spend money on a luxury item that is relatively common or seen around a lot.
If you are in business, ask yourself, with the above in mind, what creates value for your customers?