According to Francesco C. Lemonis, Managing Director of F C Lemonis…
LEADERS
GREECE, Weathering the Storm
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Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
According to Francesco C. Lemonis, Managing Director of F C Lemonis…
According to Francesco C. Lemonis, Managing Director of F C Lemonis S.A…
I think everyone knows that times are tough in Greece at the moment. But what is perhaps most difficult to overcome is the uncertainty that emerges as a result of the global markets reluctance to believe the commitment and the effectiveness of the measures taken by the Greek government. Inevitably this uncertainty filters down to consumer sentiment.
Overall, I am finding that there is a lack of dynamism that can only be overcome by boosting loyalty and improving customer experience. But nevertheless there are signs of green shoots. Fendi are defying the crisis and opening their first stand-alone boutique in Athens downtown in partnership with Lemonis Group of Companies.
Similar openings within the Lemonis Group retail portfolio are those of Hogan, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tod’s and Stuart Weitzman monobrand boutiques at the Golden Hall Mall in Athens. The choice of the afore mentioned brands to be present at Golden Hall has proven to be wise following the international acknowledgement it received this year, when it was ranked number 1 in the world at the International Council of Shopping Centres Awards 2010.
As a luxury company in Greece in this difficult moment we are keeping our heads down and looking towards the outcome of the first fiscal results; the improvement in customer sentiments and the festive activities for the celebration of the Greek brand in our portfolio- Kalogirou, which will be celebrating its 120th anniversary.
Francesco C. Lemonis
Managing Director, F C Lemonis
