According to Rony Zeidan, founder and chief creative officer of communications agency RO New York
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BEIRUT: Luxury is on the Rise
This is the featured image caption
Credit: This is the featured image credit
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 Rony Zeidan, founder and chief creative officer of communications agency RO New York
According to Rony Zeidan, founder and chief creative officer of communications agency RO New York…
On a recent trip to Beirut, I got to witness the formation of the latest Lebanese government, and watch the country move forward with it’s main concerns revolving around whether or not they could get Wireless internet for their new Apple laptops, and what couture show they will be attending in Paris this week. In a way, it is refreshing to see that the overall mentality is much more lifestyle focused than war focused.
In recent years, a lot of luxury brands have opened shop in glitzy downtown Beirut, as an alternative Middle Eastern hub to infamous Dubai. Newcomers include: Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Dior, Hermes, Bottega Veneta, Tom Ford, Carolina Herrera, Bvlgari, Girard-Perregaux, Piaget, The Four Seasons Hotel, Le Gray Hotel… to name a few.
This welcomed international invasion sits alongside some of the strong local luxury brands and retailers like Elie Saab, Zuhair Murad, Abed Mahfouz, Zoughaib jewelers, Aishti, and more….
For a country whose economy relies predominantly on tourism, it is no surprise that luxury brands have been setting up shop in Beirut for the past 2 years, while at the same time expanding their much larger endeavors in China.
And that’s just retail. If you’ve been to Beirut lately, you might find that it is a visual hybrid of 3 cities: Part Istanbul in the center, part Athens in the suburbs, and part downtown Miami by the seafront with the tall glittering glass high towers.
“ Istanbul + Miami + Athens = Beirut ”
Luxury is spreading at a speedy record and raising the real estate value 1000 folds. If you are thinking of investing in a luxury pied-a-terre on the Beirut sea front, expect to fork out up to $16,000 a square meter. If you’re thinking a smaller apartment more inland, plan on a few million dollars for a nice flat. With prices so high, it seems the economy is doing just fine. For a country whose average salary barely breaks the $1500/month ceiling, one can understand who is investing in real estate and couture gowns.
As the west is trickling into Beirut, a reverse effect is taking place with the infiltration of Lebanese fashion labels to the west. The known red carpet designers showcased couture collections, in Paris in Jul,y with celebrity packed front rows. From the offical “federation francaise de la couture” members:
To the additional guests:
Alongside Georges Chakra & Basil Soda.
This exchange of luxury dialogue per se, is a healthy one, and it provides a genuine touch for both sides when it comes to their main target audience: the wealthy Gulf residents who see Beirut as a luxury playground. It is still a risky ground to play in, and in the recent months, the Arab Spring revolutions, and the lack of a government have not been favorable to businesses. That’s nothing new to the Lebanese brands who revert back to their old ways of business: packing up a few trunks, and setting up temporary satellite shops in the Gulf region, to cater to the wealthy Arab clients… Now that’s luxury.
Maybe western brands, should look into some of these business habits in order to navigate properly through the current complex Middle Eastern market. If they persist, success will surely follow.
Founder / Chief Creative Officer
I am a creative director and brand developer specializing in the fields of Fashion, Beauty, Hospitality, and Luxury. Driven by desire to bridge my past client experience (Ralph Lauren, L’Oreal, LVMH) of nurturing and protecting a brand’s core equities, with the agency proficiency of communicating those core attributes, I established RO NEW YORK; As a boutique full service agency, we limit our client base to a select group that allows us to personalize each experience
