The Road To Luxury. Blanckaert Christian

was also for many years Chairman of the Board of the French National School of Decorative Arts (ENSAD). Blanckaert was Mayor of Varengeville-sur-Mer for 21 years and is the author of six books: Les Chemins du luxe (Grasset, 1996), Portraits en Clair-Obscur (Balland, 2001), a biography of Roger Salengro (Balland, 2004), Luxe (Editions du Cherche-Midi, 2007), Luxe Trotter (2012 Editions du Cherche–Midi, 2012), and Les 100 mots du Luxe (Les Presses Universitaires de France PUF, 2012). He is a visiting professor at ESCP-PARIS. Blanckaert graduated from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, the Faculty of Law of Paris, and has an MBA from INSEAD.

      Prologue

      The Pink Bag

      It had been sitting there, on the shelf, for ages.

      Two years, three years – nobody knew exactly, but it was surely a “depreciated asset,” as a slick city banker might say.

      They could have hidden it away at the back of a store cupboard, but that would have been too sad, too harsh. The bag had become a fixture, a familiar friend of the store, and it sat there, doggedly, fixedly – probably for a long time.

      This bag had personality. It was pink. Pink crocodile leather with a diamond clasp. Worth a small fortune. Yet still on the shelf.

      From time to time, someone would move it to another spot.

      It would be showcased, at the entrance, or to one side, or right in the middle, or at the back of the store.

      It had attracted plenty of dust, watched thousands of customers pass by, as it waited in vain to catch someone's eye.

      The pink crocodile bag filled the sales assistants with despair, but it was no use to think about it. They kept it, convinced that one day there would be a new turn of fate.

      The pink bag had aged a little, the candy pink had begun to fade slightly, and the diamonds, which were polished every day, had lost some of their sparkle.

      “We should take it off the shelf,” said the leather section manager. “We can't keep it on sale,” said the head sales manager. In short, the pink bag was a nuisance; its continual presence was annoying and it was beginning to stand out like a sore thumb.

      The bag felt ashamed. What could be the reason for its failure? Its price, its color, its skin?

      The sales assistants resorted to making jokes and calling it “unsellable,” which is of course the worst insult for a handbag.

      One Monday morning, a customer came across the bag, high up on its perch. The bag seemed rather aloof, almost condescending, as it looked down on the crowd of customers.

      “May I have a look at it?” inquired the lady.

      Excited, the sales assistant took down the bag, taking care to don her white gloves, so as not to scratch the crocodile leather. She announced the price, one hundred and ten thousand francs, and said rather clumsily, almost apologetically: “Madam, just look at the magnificent diamonds.” The customer replied, “No, I think the bag itself is beautiful. The color is unique. I've never seen a pink quite like it.” Gilberte, the sales assistant, couldn't believe her ears when the lady added, “I'll take it.”

      With a wave of her arms, a hand in the air, Gilberte did all she could to alert her colleagues.

      “The pink bag has been sold!”

      The news spread through the store like wildfire.

      At the checkout, the bag was ready and waiting, all polished and packaged, magnificent in its superb orange box.

      The sales assistant accompanied the customer to the checkout.

      “How would you like to pay?” she asked.

      “American Express,” replied the lady, confidently.

      Normally, the transaction is accepted at the first try. But this time, the machine tried once, twice, three times …before the harassed cashier was obliged to announce, in hushed tones, “I'm sorry Madam, your card is refused.”

      “The swine!” cried the customer. “It's my husband's doing, we're divorcing and he's blocked the account. I'll come back tomorrow and pay cash.”

      A few shrugs and gesticulations later and the whole store heard the message that something was wrong.

      The bag remained calmly in its box while its would-be owner stormed out.

      Gilberte slowly removed the packaging, took the bag out of the orange box, and placed it back on the shelf.

      At closing time, the bag was still there, shrouded in disappointment and surrounded by the sales team, who were muttering, “It's because of the color,” and “It will never sell.” In the end, the manager said, “We'll take it off sale tomorrow.”

      The story of the pink bag should have ended there.

      The next day, around 11 a.m., a man stopped at the store, asked to see the bag, examined it lovingly, and bought it.

      This time, the American Express card was accepted, the bag was sold; a victory for candy pink and a relief for Gilberte. The pessimists and the gigglers were both left speechless.

      The story of the pink bag should have ended there. It had been purchased by its very own knight in shining armor.

      That afternoon, something extraordinary happened.

      Nobody had believed the lady when she said she would come back for the bag and pay cash. They had sold it without as much as a second thought for her.

      And who was going to believe that divorce story, anyway?

      Well, she turned up, all happy and smiling, and proudly placed 110,000 francs in notes on the desk.

      “I've come to pick up my dream,” she said.

      The reactions among the sales assistants ranged from unease to sheer horror.

      This was not going to be easy to explain. What could they say?

      It was Gilberte who took the plunge. She explained the situation and promised to remedy it. And so a second and last bag was made, identical to the first.

      They say crocodiles will wait a long time to catch their prey.

      Chapter 1

      Introduction

      Definition and Crisis of Luxury

      Luxury has a long and fascinating history. It is apparent in artifacts from the Egyptian period of lavishness, from 1550 to 1070 b.c. Another great wave of luxurious lifestyle occurred during the Italian Renaissance, an era of great painters, sculptors, and architects during the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries a.d. This was followed by the reign of King Louis XIV of France (1638–1715), whose reign expressed an authentic French lifestyle. Then came Charles Frederick Worth (1825–1895) of Great Britain, a designer who created the concept of haute couture. Worth moved to Paris in 1846 to perfect and then commercialize his craft, holding the first fashion shows and launching the use of fashion labels. Coco Chanel (1883–1971) and Christian Dior (1905–1957) gave birth to modern fashions and ideals, marked by the rise of New York City as a luxury capital. The 1960s and 1970s then experienced the second Italian luxury revolution. Gucci and Bernard Arnault started applying the principles of strategic management to modern luxury by building the first multibrand conglomerate, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey (LVMH) group. The latest chapter to this fascinating tale of luxury and high fashion is the information technology revolution, in which news about a new product spreads like wildfire and opinions on brands, products, and companies are shared at the click of a button. The story of the evolution of luxury is really about the evolution of society.

      Countries evolve through various phases of luxury consumption. The first stage is deprivation, in which a country is crushed by poverty, which builds in the populace the desire to consume. As soon as the country manages to free itself from the shackles of deprivation and witness economic progress, its citizens are lured into buying luxuries that have high functional utilities, like washing machines, cars, and practical appliances. Then the wealthy and elite start buying luxury products. The third stage of development is marked by the desire of