Luxury World: The Past, Present and Future of Luxury Brands
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The primitive impulses behind our desire for luxury also nudge us towards a clearer definition of this slippery word. As Castarède suggests, luxury is often associated with the realm of the senses: voluptuous images, tastes, odours and sensations. Indeed, sensuality is a key component of many luxury brands.
Christopher J Berry offers further clues in his book The Idea of Luxury (1994). He writes that luxury is often, erroneously, perceived as all that is superfluous. But ‘if it takes six screws to secure a shelf then more than that number are redundant... [and] a seventh screw is not a “refined” luxury good.’ Instead, Berry submits the idea that a luxury is a refinement on something that already exists. It is not superfluous, but it is substitutable. In other words, any second-hand jalopy will get you from A to B, but driving a Bentley provides an additional sensual pleasure.
Berry remarks that luxuries generally have a wide appeal, even though they remain out of reach of the majority. Antiquarian books and rare stamps may be extremely precious to niche groups of collectors, but despite their value they are not considered luxuries. All of us, however, can imagine enjoying a weekend at a five-star hotel. For Berry, luxury falls into distinct categories: food and drink, clothing and accessories, shelter and leisure. I would add transport to the list. These are areas where the basics are available to most of us, but where luxurious substitutes are available to a few.
I used the categories above as a guide when structuring this book. But I also wanted to consider less tangible ideas of luxury. For many of us in the developed world, ‘luxury’ is not just about expensive goods. It’s also about time. Perhaps it makes more sense to save the money we would have spent on a frippery from Dior and lavish it on getting our shirts laundered, so we have time to talk to our kids or read a book instead of doing the ironing. There’s also the luxury of experience. I’m all for breakfast on the balcony and cocktails by the pool, but an eco-voyage up the Amazon or a tour of Florence with an expert in Renaissance art are also luxury vacations. And thanks to our hectic working lives, the acquisition of knowledge has itself become a luxury.
One thing that all successful brands share is a great story. The luxury sector, particularly, is full of rags-to-riches (and often finery-to-riches) sagas. Stuart McCullough, head of sales and marketing at Bentley, pointed this out after relating the history of the automotive brand. ‘The same narrative lies behind almost any luxury brand you care to examine. There’s always a hero. That hero needs to have struggled against great adversity. They rise nobly to the challenge. And today’s success is the ultimate realization of their dream.’
Relating some of these stories became one of my goals. It also enabled me to meet a few of the people behind luxury brands.
SAVOIR FAIRE
The real inspiration for this book was Paris, which has been my home for the best part of a decade. There are many sides to the city, but its facade, at least, is opulent. From the shop windows of Avenue Montaigne to the chic students who combine H&M with Dior, from the jewellery boutiques of Place Vendôme to the jewel-like macaroons in the window of Ladurée, I see flashes of luxury almost every day. This constant exposure to a world that lay – most of the time – just beyond my reach prodded me to investigate further. I barged through the gilded doors using the only means at my disposal: a press card and a list of questions.
And while I’ll admit to a certain bias, it seems fair that any inquiry into the world of luxury should devote a large percentage of space to the French capital. In fact, there is a strong case to be made for Paris as the birthplace of modern luxury.
In his 2001 love letter to the city, Le Flâneur, the writer Edmund White notes: ‘The French invented the idea of luxe and have always been willing to pay for it... A ritual of Parisian life is trading les bonnes addresses – the names and locations of some talented upholsterer or hat-maker or re-caner of straw bottomed chairs or of a lovely little neighbourhood seamstress.’
Although the city had long been associated with pleasure (even the Romans praised its temperate climate), the systematization of luxury began with Louis XIV. As the historian Jean Castarède puts it, under the Sun King ‘French luxury became a profession’. In the mirrored fastness of Versailles, Louis set the bar of opulence so high that even the wealthiest nobleman was unable to compete with him. He devoted hours to his toilet and literally dictated the fashions of the day. ‘One word from him was enough to ensure that a doublet with too many slashes was revised, or that a fashion that was not to his taste vanished,’ writes Castarède.
Louis’ vanity sprung from a familiar psychological driver: insecurity. As a boy, his life had been threatened by the Fronde (named after a type of slingshot), a political insurrection that had brought the mob to the very gates of the Palais Royal. One of the rebels made it as far as the king’s bedchamber – but was disconcerted by the sight of the sleeping 12-year-old boy. The precocious Louis later quelled the uprising by taking control of parliament (‘L’état, c’est moi’) and paying off the rebel leaders. But the king never forgot that the people could turn against him. He abandoned Paris for a former hunting lodge in the suburbs, turning it into a glittering carapace. The court of Versailles effectively became a theatre in which Louis played the leading role – and always wore the most exquisite costumes.
But the king’s tastes spread beyond fashion to influence architecture, gardening, furniture and the decorative arts. His passion for luxury ensured that an entire industry grew up to serve him.
Henceforth, Paris was eternally linked with le luxe, even after the revolution. But before we reach that point we should mention another personality who used Versailles as a private playground: Marie Antoinette. ‘This child of 15,’ as Castarède describes her, ‘thrown into the intoxicating environment of the loftiest and most stunning court in the world... from her arrival in France mistakenly saw life as a costume ball and royalty as a succession of fashion shows.’
At first, the queen and the city seemed made for one another. In her 2001 biography of Marie Antoinette, Antonia Fraser observes ‘Paris was a city dependent on the financial support of the noble and rich to maintain its industries, which were in the main to do with luxury and semi-luxury goods... In a country where details of appearance, costume and presentation were “vital matters”... Marie Antoinette was an appropriate consort.’
We know where the queen’s extravagant lifestyle led her – but post-revolutionary France did not entirely lose its taste for luxury. And Napoleon was in no position to offer a remedy, judging by the loot he brought back from his European victories and the opulent balls he threw to celebrate them. As for his personal tastes, the emperor was a client of the watchmaker Breguet and a fastidious wearer of cologne. In this respect he was almost as fragrant as his empress, Josephine, who launched the French perfume industry practically single-handed.
It was during the Second Empire – under Napoleon III – that French luxury began to take the shape that is familiar to us today. Many brands that remain the essence of French chic were founded in the 19th century. Louis-François Cartier established his jewellery business in 1847, later handing it over to his son Alfred. The firm moved to a prestigious address in Rue de la Paix – not far from the Ritz hotel and its stream of wealthy clients – in 1899, where it remains. Only six years earlier, Boucheron had moved to the nearby Place Vendôme, where visitors can still gaze into its sparkling windows. Thierry Hermès had founded his celebrated saddlery and equestrian supplies business in 1837. In 1880 it transferred to its current address at 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré – close, at the time, to the homes and stables of the aristocracy.
In 1854 a trunk-maker called Louis Vuitton opened his atelier a stone’s throw away from Cartier and Boucheron. Vuitton’s designs were a reflection of his times. Traditionally, travellers’ trunks had curved tops, designed to sluice off the rain when they were strapped to the roofs of stagecoaches. But Vuitton’s trunks were flat – the better for stacking in the baggage cars of trains or the holds
of steamships. They were made of durable poplar and sheathed in grey waterproofed canvas. The design became so commonplace that Vuitton began printing his own name on the canvas in a symmetrical pattern, transforming his trunks into branded accessories.
Today, of course, Louis Vuitton is part of the massive LVMH (Moët Hennessy, Louis Vuitton) conglomerate. A former real-estate entrepreneur named Bernard Arnault took control of the group in 1989. A couple of years earlier he had acquired Boussac, the textile firm that owned the Christian Dior fashion house, laying the foundations for what was to become a luxury empire.
The presence of LVMH is another reason for the pre-eminence of France in the world of luxury. There are actually three such conglomerates, which together have transformed luxury from the domain of discreet craftspeople into a multi-billion dollar industry. They are, in size order, LVMH, Richemont and PPR (owner of the Gucci Group, which alongside Gucci itself embraces a slew of premium brands, including Boucheron, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen). These are unquestionably the most powerful players in luxury – and all three of them are based in Paris.
Italy can make a very serious claim to the luxury throne – with its potent ready-to-wear and leather goods brands – but France is far stronger in the areas of wines and spirits, fragrances and cosmetics, watches, jewellery and tableware.
In short, Paris lies at the heart of the luxury world. And that is where our journey begins.
Place Vendôme: a Parisian hub of traditional luxury
Photos: Mark Tungate
Bespoke shoemaker Pierre Corthay hard at work in his atelier
Photo: Stéphanie Fraisse
Pattern making at the Corthay atelier
Photo: Géraldine Bruneel
Photos reproduced by kind permission of Corthay Bottiers
Moulds at the Corthay atelier
Photo: Géraldine Bruneel
Bespoke shoemaking
Photo: Stéphanie Fraisse
Photos reproduced by kind permission of Corthay Bottiers
Independent jeweller Lorenz Bäumer…
Photo: Takao Oshima, reproduced by kind permission of Lorenz Bäumer
…and one of the rings he designed, the ‘urchin’
Image provided by Lorez Bäumer
The founders of Piaget
Image provided by Piaget Time Gallery
The Piaget workshops today
Photo: Mark Tungate
1940s and 1970s advertising for Piaget
Images provided by Piaget
The origins of a Swiss watch
Piaget’s watchmakers are not all the snowy-haired craftsmen one might imagine
Photos: Mark Tungate
The Mark: after a revamp by French architect Jacques Grange, an iconic New York address has been repositioned as an example of innovative luxury.
Image kindly provided by The Mark press office
Restored stained glass at Paris department store Printemps
Long-lost mosaics were uncovered during the restoration work
Photos: Christophe Lemaître, reproduced by kind permission of Printemps
Waterborne luxury: the Wally yacht ‘Saudade’
Photos: Carlo Borlenghi. Reproduced with kind permission of Wally
Interiors of the ‘Saudade’
Photos: Toni Meneguzzo. Reproduced with kind permission of Wally
In champagne country
The grapes that dreams are made of
Images provided by Louis Roederer
Inside the cellars
‘Turning’ the champagne bottles
Images provided by Louis Roederer
The Bentley icon
Bentley Brooklands
Images provided by Bentley
Recreating the Bentley Boys spirit on a heritage drive
Celebrating the Bentley factory at Crew
Images provided by Bentley
Fractional luxury: own a slice of a NetJets plane
Image provided by NetJets
The future of luxury? Tesla’s electric roadster
Photo: Mark Tungate
1
The dream weavers
* * *
‘As long as there is a society, there will always be fashion.’
It was not surprising that the funeral of Yves Saint Laurent resembled a fashion show. In front of the Eglise Saint Roch – a break in the narrow boutique-lined canyon of Rue Saint Honoré – the tiered bank of photographers was an irresistible reminder of the battery of lenses that bristles at the end of every catwalk. And, of course, nobody was getting into the church if they weren’t on the list.
But Yves Saint Laurent was also a French national treasure, so efforts had been made to include the public. Although the street was closed to traffic, we could watch the fashion firmament arriving from behind the steel barriers that kept us at a safe distance. A giant screen outside the church projected images of the funeral procession, and later of the service itself.
The 5th of June 2008 was overcast, the grey sky seeming to press down on the onlookers cramming the little street. Opposite the church, wizened black-clad ladies ventured onto the balconies of their apartments, like figures auguring rain on a weather clock. More ladies of a certain age lurked in the crowd, the mothballs shaken out of their Saint Laurent dresses. The atmosphere was solemn, with an odd undercurrent of pride. It would be difficult to imagine another country’s citizens responding so emotionally to the passing of a fashion designer. ‘Thank goodness it started at 3.30,’ said a man standing next to me. ‘I had time to finish lunch.’
Leading designers came to pay their respects: John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Hubert de Givenchy, Christian Lacroix, Kenzo Takada, Valentino... soon the church held more brand names than a department store. The actress Catherine Deneuve, whose screen appearances in Saint Laurent helped to define the label’s coolly sophisticated image, climbed the steps clutching a sheaf of green wheat. Embracing Pierre Bergé, she wiped away a tear. Bergé was the business mastermind behind the Yves Saint Laurent brand, and for many years the designer’s partner in life as well as work. President Nicolas Sarkozy appeared with Carla – first lady and former Yves Saint Laurent model.
Finally, the gleaming oak coffin arrived. As it was carried into the church, the crowd broke into applause. The great designer had made his last journey down the catwalk. There wouldn’t be another like him, everyone said. It was the end of an era.
THE ROAD TO READY-TO-WEAR
‘In fashion, it’s always the end of an era,’ points out Didier Grumbach, president of the Fédération Française de la Couture, which organizes the Paris collections, educates the next generation of designers and is generally the keeper of the flame of French fashion. ‘It was the end of an era, too, when [Cristóbal] Balenciaga closed his fashion house in 1968. And yet today the Balenciaga brand is back and thriving. Fashion is merely a reflection of society. As long as there is a society, there will always be fashion.’
What Grumbach does acknowledge, however, is Saint Laurent’s huge influence on the fashion of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. ‘Modern women’s clothing owes a great debt to Saint Laurent. The descendents of his designs are the foundation of the wardrobes of many millions of women.’
For this and other reasons, Yves Saint Laurent is an ideal figure to study when looking at the long journey of luxury fashion from haute couture to high street. But in order to appreciate the pivotal role he played, we first need to take a look at some of his precursors. The archetype of the fashion designer owes a lot to the example of an Englishman named Charles Frederick Worth, who left London in 1847 with five pounds to his name and rose to become an outfitter of empresses.
Traditionally, French couturiers had been humble suppliers whose creations depended more on the caprices of their clients than on their own imaginations. A possible exception was Rose Bertin, a haberdasher and couturière who had become personal stylist to Marie Antoinette. Berti
n had entered court circles thanks to her numerous aristocratic clients. The patronage of a megastar like Marie Antoinette lifted her reputation to stratospheric heights, allowing her to play the diva in her shop on the Rue Saint Honoré. When a snobbish customer came calling, Bertin sniffed ‘Show madame my latest work for her majesty.’ She may have been nicknamed ‘the minister of fashion’, but it is not clear how much Bertin called the shots when faced with a queen of style. They occasionally have the air of mischievous confidantes daring one another to go a step further.
Worth, on the other hand, was a fashion tyrant. He cajoled his clients into following his tastes and was determined that his designs should resemble those of no other dressmaker. ‘My mission is to invent: creativity is the secret of my success,’ he boasted. This single-mindedness was apparent from the start, when he was working as an assistant at the Paris drapery house of Gagelin and Opigez. Visitors admired the fit of the dresses Worth had made for his wife, who also worked at the store. Soon he had his own fashion house and was promising to liberate women from their crinolines, warning them that he alone possessed the skill to refine their silhouettes. This was made-to-measure with an extra touch of self-aggrandizement. At the turn of the century, mere couture made way for haute couture.1