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China- Land of Opportunity for Luxury

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Lucy Archibald

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Credit: This is the featured image credit

Scott Galloway explains how the “staggering” size of China means it is the key to success for prestige brands

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

Scott Galloway explains how the “staggering” size of China means it is the key to success for prestige brands

Scott Galloway explains how the “staggering” size of China means it is the key to success for prestige brands

NYU Stern Marketing Professor and Founder of L2 discusses the findings of his new study ‘L2 Digital IQ Index’. He highlights how with more people online in China than in the US, Japan and Europe combined, any brands that are serious about e-commerce need to address the Chinese market. According to Galloway e-commerce, or “the biggest opportunity in prestige in a generation” is of particular relevance to China because so far destination stores have not created the buzz that they have in previous markets. He posits that just as in India the telephone market skipped land lines and went straight to mobiles, China may skip the process of ‘theatre retail’ and go straight to online. Moreover, he points out that a lot of the economic growth in China is going to be outside ‘tier 1 cities’, where big brands aren’t even thinking about building statement stores.

Galloway believes that so far beauty and the auto industry are outperforming the other luxury sectors, and brands that Galloway believes are doing it best include BMW, Mercedes, Lancome and Estee Lauder. Lancome have launched their own social media site, called Rose Beauty which specifically speaks to a Chinese market and already has 4 million users, and Estee Lauders are doing the seemingly obvious, but often overlooked, task of tailoring their product to the market, extremely well.

Lucy Archibald
Lucy Archibald

Associate Editor

RETAIL

China- Land of Opportunity for Luxury

by

Lucy Archibald

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit : This is the featured image credit

Scott Galloway explains how the “staggering” size of China means it is the key to success for prestige brands

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

Scott Galloway explains how the “staggering” size of China means it is the key to success for prestige brands

Scott Galloway explains how the “staggering” size of China means it is the key to success for prestige brands

NYU Stern Marketing Professor and Founder of L2 discusses the findings of his new study ‘L2 Digital IQ Index’. He highlights how with more people online in China than in the US, Japan and Europe combined, any brands that are serious about e-commerce need to address the Chinese market. According to Galloway e-commerce, or “the biggest opportunity in prestige in a generation” is of particular relevance to China because so far destination stores have not created the buzz that they have in previous markets. He posits that just as in India the telephone market skipped land lines and went straight to mobiles, China may skip the process of ‘theatre retail’ and go straight to online. Moreover, he points out that a lot of the economic growth in China is going to be outside ‘tier 1 cities’, where big brands aren’t even thinking about building statement stores.

Galloway believes that so far beauty and the auto industry are outperforming the other luxury sectors, and brands that Galloway believes are doing it best include BMW, Mercedes, Lancome and Estee Lauder. Lancome have launched their own social media site, called Rose Beauty which specifically speaks to a Chinese market and already has 4 million users, and Estee Lauders are doing the seemingly obvious, but often overlooked, task of tailoring their product to the market, extremely well.

Lucy Archibald
Lucy Archibald

Associate Editor

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