Fashion weeks have now come and gone, New York, London, Milan and Paris and it got me thinking about the sales. I don’t know why because they are least two months away. In any event I started to think, again, about luxury brands. As I always do. And the thought that sprung to mind was.... Why do you have to queue outside Louis Vuitton?
Surely luxury is about exclusivity. When you think about it Luxury is about exclusivity but luxury brands are not. Increasingly the products produced and indeed consumed are available anywhere and everywhere. No longer are Bond Street, Madison Avenue, Rue Saint-Honoré to name a few the shopping destinations for exclusive goods they are simply destinations where conglomerates maintain a ‘Flagship’ presence. If you want to buy Dior or Chanel you could venture to an outlet store.
So what is exclusive about these so called luxury products? It’s not really the price if you can buy them at reduced prices, nor is the actual goods considering they are mass produced and sold all over the world.Yet people flock to the stores throughout the year and especially during the sales and stand in line patiently waiting to buy something that is so readily available.The idea of exclusivity is, well quite odd. Luxury brands are now building larger and larger stores, appealing to the spectacle of shopping. These cathedrals of consumption do nothing more than encourage people to spend money on more and more things that are desired rather than needed; desire created through hype and rhetoric and nothing much else. You could join the throngs that visit the newish 15,000 square foot Louis Vuitton store on Bond Street, be pushed and shoved to see the spectacle that may be an art instillation, rather like a travelling freak show. Exclusive? I am not sure. Or you could simply wait and queue for discounts during the Louis Vuitton sale.
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