Luxury World: The Past, Present and Future of Luxury Brands

by Tungate, Mark

  As well as enthusing about the hotel’s more obviously extravagant touches – the restaurant headed by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, the hairdressing salon overseen by Frédéric Fekkai – Sherwin puts himself in his guests’ shoes. ‘For example, at many hotels the mini bar is simply a disgrace. Here, every single room is equipped with a 1930s-style cocktail bar that opens up to reveal full bottles – not just miniatures – and a refrigerator that provides plenty of ice. It’s all about going that extra distance. We are the first hotel in New York to be fully equipped with Bang & Olufsen equipment, for instance.’

  Details count when it comes to service, Sherwin notes. For example, the hotel can provide ‘black tie emergency kits’ containing a pressed shirt, bow tie and cufflinks, for guests who find that they are required to attend a formal event.

  And finally, of course, there is the personal touch. ‘American hotel groups are fond of the idea that you should address every guest by their name, but staff sometimes apply this rule rather unthinkingly. There may be certain circumstances – in the hotel lobby, for example, with others looking on – in which guests may not want to be addressed by name. In those cases, “sir” or “madam” will do quite nicely.’

  LUXURY TRAVEL SERVICES

  How do the rich travel? Not light, that’s for sure. One expert at dealing with the fabulously wealthy is Roshan Pillai, general manager of the Al Mousim Travel Group based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 2007 Roshan founded the group’s luxury travel department, which specializes in organizing vacations for prominent Saudi families. It is a concierge-style service with a password-protected website and a very exclusive clientele. Only those who have received a personal invitation from the agency are granted access to the service. The average price of a vacation arranged through the department is between US $150,000 and US $200,000. Pillai and his team of six consultants regularly organize family vacations for groups of 15 or 20 people: mother, father, up to six children, friends and members of staff.

  ‘The key is engagement,’ says Pillai. ‘This is a bespoke service and the client gets one-to-one advice from their personal consultant.’

  Once a client has contacted the service, a consultant is dispatched to their home to discuss their ideas and desires. He takes notes and then returns at a later date with suggestions. ‘We have to be creative because our customers always want something new. We try to come up with an entirely different package for every single inquiry. Having said that, there are trends: recently South America has become a more popular destination. We have organized a cruise on the Amazon, for example.’

  Naturally, travel is fast track and hotel rooms are the very best. An Al Mousim consultant flies to the destination a day or two in advance to check that the accommodation is up to scratch and to greet the travellers. The manager of the hotel or resort is usually on hand to welcome the party when it arrives. Just as some clients provide their own jet, others vacation in cities where they own a property. In that case, Pillai’s team organizes just about everything else: transfer, excursions, shopping trips, visits to exhibitions and access to the trendiest boutiques, restaurants and shows. ‘Of course, we build plenty of flexibility into the schedule, so we don’t put any pressure on our clients,’ he adds.

  The team has also expanded into corporate trips, generally to glitzy international events like the Monaco Grand Prix. Pillai adds that Europe remains a beloved destination among Saudi travellers, many of whom have second homes in France. Indeed, Pillai is on the advisory board of the Maison de la France – the French tourist board – to help it cater to the needs of visitors from Saudi Arabia.

  Al Mousim’s luxury service attracts new customers by word of mouth, as well as the occasional envious article in a premium magazine. Economic tremors have had little impact on the business. ‘We’re planning to expand our infrastructure because right now we’re actually having to turn down business. We don’t want to take on more assignments than we can handle and undermine the service for our existing clients.’

  Central and Eastern Europe is another source of wealthy travellers. A young Slovak entrepreneur named Radoslav Radosa hopes to capture that market with the Radosa Luxury Travel Group. Founded in 2008, it specializes in hotel reservations and concierge services. An invitation-only, password-protected website gives clients access to some of the world’s most luxurious hotels. The hotels pay a subscription to become part of the service. ‘In return, they gain access to the clients of the future. Many services like this exist already, but they are English-language and Western-oriented. If hotels wish to develop their businesses, they need to look to emerging markets, which include Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Kazakhstan and Armenia as well as Russia and the Gulf.’

  Luxury hotels are familiar with the concept of joining forces under an umbrella brand for marketing purposes: examples include The Leading Hotels of the World, Five Star Alliance, Relais & Châteaux and Design Hotels. Many alliances were formed to tackle the challenges presented by central reservation systems (CRS). Forerunners of the internet, CRS enabled travel agents to book hotel rooms by computer rather than over the phone. The cost of appearing on these systems was prohibitive, which gave big hotel chains a major marketing advantage. And so independent hotels banded together to share the cost and raise their profiles. Today, members of these groups pay annual fees in order to benefit from joint websites, a presence in glossy annual directories and shared advertising campaigns. This is particularly useful to ‘boutique’ hotels that appeal to wealthy travellers but lack marketing dollars.

  Meanwhile, after a hard day’s interviewing, I am back on my balcony at the distinctly un-boutique Hotel de Paris. Night has fallen and gold and silver reflections shimmer on the satin waters of the harbour. Pop music and snatches of laughter drift up from a big yacht strung with lights from prow to stern. I’m off duty for the evening, but Monte Carlo is still working. It’s busy living up to its image.

  10

  Art brands

  * * *

  ‘Artists incarnate the idea of the unique and the rare, which is the very foundation of luxury.’

  FIAC may not be the most prestigious contemporary art fair on the calendar, but it has one of the loveliest settings. La Foire Internationale de l’Art Contemporaine is held in the nave of the Grand Palais, a giant secular cathedral with a curvilinear glass and steel roof that soars above the trees lining the nearby Champs Elysées. Opened in time for the Universal Exhibition of 1900, the edifice took three years to build. Inside, the arcing steel girders are painted a particularly French shade of light green known as ‘mignonette’, which gives the structure the look of a retro-futuristic city in a Jules Verne novel. The central dome is suspended 45 metres over our heads at its highest point. Rather like the Eiffel Tower, this is gratuitous architecture, useful for little other than being gawped at. It is, therefore, the perfect space for a contemporary art exhibition. Standing in the middle of it as light cascades down onto the first visitors of the day, it is difficult not to feel a surge of excitement.

  Despite the fact that this edition of FIAC has attracted more than 180 modern and contemporary art galleries – two-thirds of them from outside France – and has erected a secondary exhibition space in the courtyard of the Louvre, most people involved in the fair tell me that it is a rather modest event. The landmark gatherings of the year for the art crowd are TEFAF, The European Fine Art Foundation Fair (held in Maastricht in March), Frieze in London (held just before FIAC every October) and Art Basel (held in June) along with its sister event Art Basel Miami (in December).

  FIAC is more relaxed and accessible than these events, and it is a more comfortable environment for members of the public. Some dealers consider this an advantage. ‘La FIAC plays a vital educational role,’ says legendary Parisian gallerist Denise René, whose gallery has been specializing in abstract art since 1944. ‘Future collectors are born here.’

  Frieze and Art Basel are big brands. There is a great deal of branding in the art world. Just as the f
airs are branded, so are many of the artists showing work there. The galleries are certainly branded. A handful of collectors are branded, too. All this is purely logical. Like it or not, works of art are luxury goods. ‘Artists incarnate the idea of the unique and the rare, which is the very foundation of luxury,’ the French artist Fabrice Hyber told Madame Figaro magazine (‘L’art, c’est du luxe’, 26–27 October 2008).

  He added: ‘The world of luxury needs us.’

  BRANDED COLLECTORS

  To confirm the parallel between artworks and luxury goods, one only has to take a closer look at the ‘branded collectors’, as Don Thompson calls them in his excellent (2008) book The $12 Million Stuffed Shark. Perhaps the most famous of them all is Charles Saatchi, who helped to fund the artist Damien Hirst’s titular shark – which hovers in a tank of formaldehyde with its jaws agape – and later sold it for US $12 million, or US $8 million, depending on who you talk to.

  As a former advertising man, Saatchi is no doubt highly aware of the importance of branding. He is famous for exhibiting challenging or ‘shock’ art that provokes media buzz and pulls in the crowds, turning his chosen artists into celebrities. Saatchi has a knack for discovering artists who stir the imaginations of the press and the general public. He spotted Damien Hirst, for example, when this most famous of British artists was still a student a Goldsmith’s College in London. Hirst was to become the ultimate branded artist, effacing the boundaries between art and commerce in a way that far eclipsed similar efforts by Andy Warhol.

  Saatchi is dismissive of critics who feel uncomfortable with this clash of art and celebrity. ‘Better to be a celebrity because people talk about your art, rather than your wedding pictures in Hello!’, he told The Sunday Times (‘The revolution continues at the new Saatchi Gallery’, 5 October 2008).

  I first came across Saatchi’s take on art in 1997, at a now-notorious exhibition called Sensation, held at the Royal Academy in London. It featured more than 120 Saatchi-owned works by 42 young British artists. Among the pieces on show were Marcus Harvey’s portrait of the child murderer Myra Hindley – her pixelated features formed by children’s tiny handprints – and Jake and Dinos Chapman’s sculptures of children whose noses and mouths had been replaced by penises and anuses. There were public demonstrations outside the gallery and the media had a thoroughly good time getting steamed up over the ‘scandalous’ artworks. Inevitably, the exhibition achieved international press coverage (‘Art that tweaks the British propriety’, said a headline in The New York Times on 20 September 2007) and attracted around 300,000 visitors during its three-month run.

  I remember being dismayed by the child sculptures, but other exhibits seemed teasing and fun. Hirst’s shark was on show (its correct name is ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’) along with an infamous piece by Tracey Emin. Entitled ‘Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995’, it was a tent decorated with the names of all those who had shared her bed, from sexual partners to a teddy bear. (When the tent was destroyed in a warehouse fire in 2004, several tabloid newspapers offered to replace it for considerably less than the £1 million it was reportedly insured for.) And there was something queasily fascinating about Mark Quinn’s ‘Self’, a frozen cast of the artist’s head made with eight pints of his own blood. Whatever else Sensation achieved, it opened my eyes to the infinite possibilities of contemporary art – and established Charles Saatchi as the ultimate branded collector.

  In October 2008, almost exactly 11 years after my first brush with Saatchi’s art, I visited his new gallery in a former army barracks just off the King’s Road in London. The highlight of the inaugural exhibition, devoted to Chinese artists, was a basement room containing Sun Yuan and Pen Yu’s lifelike sculptures of elderly ex-military types in robotic wheelchairs. The chairs collided, reversed and set off again in new directions, performing a grotesque ballet. The work seemed to suggest that these men – with their waxen features, dusty uniforms and chinking medals – could not avoid waging war, without rhyme or reason, even on the brink of death. Like much of Saatchi’s art, it was disturbing and provocative. Yet the gallery is highly accessible – free to visit and next to a busy shopping street. Saatchi is not just in the business of buying and selling: his brand name has enabled him to bring ‘difficult’ contemporary art to the attention of a wider public. The contemporary art boom and the popularity of museums like London’s Tate Modern and New York’s MoMA can at least partly be attributed to the taste-making instincts of Charles Saatchi.

  Saatchi’s brand has an impact on the art market because less visionary collectors follow his lead. Anybody who has spent any time looking at contemporary art will know that it is almost impossible to fathom why one artist is ‘hot’ and another is not. Reading the art critics does not help, as most of what they have to say is impenetrable or, at the very least, hyperbolic. And yet here you are, a shiny new billionaire, and you want to invest in the sexy world of contemporary art. As Don Thompson writes: ‘Even if you are only moderately rich, there is almost nothing you can buy for £1 million that will generate as much status and recognition as a branded work of contemporary art.’

  So if you can’t crack the code, what do you do? You buy what Saatchi buys.

  Two other branded collectors have direct links to the luxury goods industry. They are also rivals – in the art world as in the luxury world. The individual best known to the general public is Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH (Moët Hennessy, Louis Vuitton), who is said to possess one of the most important collections of modern and contemporary pieces in France. Louis Vuitton has an art gallery on the top floor of its flagship store in Paris; cynics say this was added to help the store circumvent France’s ban on Sunday trading, as it could legitimately claim to be a cultural attraction.

  In 1999, LVMH bought the 200-year-old auction house Phillips for US $100 million, merging it with the gallery of private art dealers Simon de Pury and Daniela Luxembourg. But it seems that the house did not perform as well as LVMH had hoped. In 2002, LVMH sold the bulk of its shares to De Pury and Luxembourg. A year later, it pulled out altogether (‘LVMH to sell Phillips stake to auction house executives’, The New York Times, 28 January 2003). Simon de Pury moved the operation to trendy new headquarters in New York’s Meatpacking District and announced that it would focus on ‘contemporary art, design, jewellery and photography’. In 2008, Russian luxury and retail company the Mercury Group acquired control of Phillips de Pury & Company. Mercury owns the TSUM department store in Moscow, as well as the Barvikha Luxury Village just outside the city.

  Back at Louis Vuitton, luxury goods themselves are fusing with works of art. In 2001 the company produced bags and other items featuring designs by the graffiti artist Stephen Sprouse – a line it resurrected in 2009. It has also collaborated with Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince. Like Murakami and Sprouse, Prince reworked Vuitton’s mono-gram logo – but the brand’s spring/summer 2008 fashion show went a step further by sending out models dressed as the ‘sexy nurses’ who feature in some of Prince’s paintings.

  Vuitton is not the only luxury brand to have made a grab for cultural legitimacy by joining forces with the art world. The French brand Longchamp, for example, recruited Tracey Emin to design a successful collection of bags. The White Cube gallery in London sold a limited edition range of the bags via its online shop.

  On a far larger scale, at the beginning of March 2008 Chanel sponsored a mobile art exhibition of works loosely inspired by the shape of its quilted ‘2.55’ handbag. Some 20 artists – including Daniel Buren, Sophie Calle, Fabrice Hyber and Yoko Ono – exhibited works in a futuristic collapsible structure designed by the fashionable architect Zaha Hadid. Launched on the rooftop of a skyscraper in Hong Kong, the nomadic ‘art pavilion’ was due to embark on a worldwide tour that would take it to New York, London, Moscow and Paris. Touching down like a computer mouse-shaped UFO in the middle of a recession, the structure and its contents could hardly have looked m
ore out of place. The tour was quietly cut short in New York.

  Another well-known collector from the luxury industry is also a Frenchman: François Pinault, who runs the PPR group. As mentioned earlier, this owns a raft of famous luxury brands, including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta. For a while, it looked as though Pinault’s ventures into the art world had been more successful than those of Bernard Arnault, his great business rival. Pinault remains the owner of the prestigious auction house Christie’s. In 2004 he established a private art foundation at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, having abandoned plans to build a museum in his homeland when French bureaucracy prevented him from getting his hands on his preferred site – a giant former Renault plant.

  Bernard Arnault was not to be outdone, however. In 2006 he announced the creation of a US $100 million centre for contemporary art in the Bois de Boulogne, just outside Paris. And as the steel cherry on the undulating cake, the structure would be designed by Frank Gehry, the architect famous for creating ‘branded buildings’ like the spectacular Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

  It’s interesting to note that, at various times, both collectors have relied on outside advisors. Three names have been associated with Monsieur Arnault of LVMH: Patricia Marechal, Hervé Mikaeloff and Jean-Claude Claverie. The daily newspaper published at Art Basel teasingly called them ‘Team Arnault’ (‘European collectors on their annual shopping spree’, Art Basel Daily Edition, 14 June 2006). A couple of years later, referring to Arnault’s plans for an art foundation, Claverie told Bloomberg.com, ‘It’s a way of showing that luxury, which often has an arrogant, elitist, egotistical image, can be generous’ (‘LVMH plans museum as companies review arts spending’, 2 October 2008).