Aug 03 2009
What is a Luxury Product?
Luxury fashion. The word luxury when coupled with fashion brings to mind all the opulent fashion labels, usually those that the wealthy can afford, but many high end fashion labels do make their accessories more affordable, but is the price uniform?
Absolutely not and this is part of my gripe. I can appreciate the costs that are incurred in the shipping process, but the price variations can be mind boggling. For example, if you buy a Louis Vuitton wallet in France, you can expect to purchase it for around US$20.00 and upward cheaper than you would in the United States. However, that same wallet will be US$200.00 more in places like Australia and Japan.
Just what is LVMH doing here? Is the price really deserving? What is the actual retail value of the particular wallet?
Breaking into the luxury industry isn’t easy. There are books that offer plenty of advice, however luxury end products often mean older companies. Luxury is also about identity, reputation (real, exagerrated and imagined) and quality (real and plumped up). Idoubt that a fashion chain can transform into a worldwide luxury chain in a year. Charge upward of US$1000.00 for a handbag, and people will ask, ‘Well who are they to charge that much?’ This would be typical question aimed at the new company to charge this amount. Does it relate to the way the open economy is? Does it relate to the high number of sweat shops? If luxury company A is buying its raw goods for a measly amount, charging its labor force another measly amount, then how can the exorbitant retail price be justified? Well, regardless of what luxury sycophants will say in their books, it’s about marketing. Marketing costs.
Last year, it was reported that Louis Vuitton was the most profiteable and identifiable luxury house. This year however, it’s a different story, with LVMH profit being down by 23% . Of course, the company maintains a positive outlook, but they do shave costs in other areas. For example, their advertising campaigns may appear in the first pages of fashion magazines for some months or during the months they are pushing new products.That being said, the Louis Vuitton company within the LVMH umbrella, is the company that carries the umbrella .
But this doesn’t really answer the question in the title of this post. What is a luxury product? Although the quality may be visibly discernible, particularly with Louis Vuitton products, other self-proclaimed luxury end labels cannot say the same for their products. Take fashion house Chloe as one example. I was browsing handbags in a department store recently, and I overheard two women exclaiming their shock. According to them, one of the handbags was more than a thousand dollars cheaper in Hawaii than in Sydney, Australia. Fancy that! A thousand dollar difference. I have to add that the leather quality of the Chloe handbags isn’t that fantastic. Prada isn’t that hot either. For Prada, you’re paying for the metallic logo more than anything else. But they’re all considered luxury fashion.
For me, luxury means one of a kind or a product that you cannot buy anywhere else. Such as a product, whose materials are unique to the fashion house. For example, you can’t find the same quality canvas used by Louis Vuitton elsewhere. Just like you can’t find the same quality ‘Epi’ leather that Louis Vuitton uses, so in that regard, I have to give LVMH credit. But the worldwide price differences for products is annoying to me, and a huge disappointment.
Luxury to me, is not sweatshop labor and poor or average quality materials that are overprice. Example: some of the leather that Prada and Miu Miu uses. But still, it doesn’t answer the question of what a luxury product is. The function and meaning of a luxury product vary from one person to the next.
Luxury products serve to define one person from the next in terms of personal taste, style and more importantly, notions of wealth. Furthermore, you can further define wealth by the amount of luxury products one totes on one’s person. While I consider it tacky for people to wear one designer head to toe, getting the style formula right can work. But personal wealth cannot be measured by luxury apparel and accessories. For example, in the area I live, there are a few shady brothels. Their staff don’t live in mansions or work as CEOs, but they can afford the occasional designer handbag and it’s this affordability of a median priced item that bolsters a consumer’s ego, buying them a dream and that is what luxury is. The dream.
Luxury doesn’t always mean better functionality. After all, a handbag isn’t a car, but it’s about the dream. For example, a fifty dollar wallet with 24 card slots will do the same job as a Louis Vuitton Insolite wallet, but it is hundreds of dollars cheaper, without the obvious LV logo (that denotes status).
Luxury, whether in concept form or as a physical product, is a concept.
