Lionel Crochet, owner of a luxury travel business located right off the famed Avenue Montaigne (www.ultimatelifestyle.fr), says, “Paris is a big swimming pool of the best of what the world has to offer. Growing up in a French household, you develop a taste for quality. You are raised with the best. We might not have it in our genes to be super efficient or hyper creative in a trendy sense but in regards to a Chanel suit, 20 years later, you wouldn’t move a stitch.”

However, the very idea of luxury brands and branding is undergoing unprecedented analysis due to the shifting tide of global economics, the increasing availability of so-called "luxe" products, and of course "green" fever. The latest buzz regarding luxury brands stems from two books in particular. The first is Dana Thomas' Deluxe, How Luxury Lost It's Luster, which provides a detailed overview of the history of Paris couture—for example, the more than 200 hours of work that go into the creation of a single gown and the moment in time when the visionaries behind the frocks came to hold sway over the aristocrats who wore their designs.

This power shift was an important development in the history of luxury brands for two vital reasons. First, the creator was empowered to focus on quality—asking can you sit, can you stand, what will you be doing in the dress, etc.—for these were dresses made to be worn repeatedly. They were not disposable fashion. Secondly, creators came to dictate (in the strictest sense of the word) fashion and style as indispensable counsel to aristocrats seeking advice on trends, elegance, and taste.

The very idea of luxury arose from a close relationship between the master creator and the client. Thomas talks about the modern day massification of luxury brands and the consequential loss of "luster." Today, the sense of exclusivity and the special je ne sais quoi of luxury items have been compromised by mass production and increasing financial means. The very rich must now (and do) look for even more heightened and exclusive luxury experiences—so take note luxury brands.

When it comes to luxury brands then and now in fact, much is lost in translation. For example, when asked about luxury brand sales, one Parisian personal shopper to wealthy clientele, Noémie Khatchadourian, says she has a hard time finding American clients with the declining strength of the US dollar. "All of my clients are Russian. I must educate them on the French touch though. When they first come to me, all they want is bling.” The concept of "bling" is decidedly at odds with the French concept of luxury.

The French value the idea of longevity and the importance of heritage as it relates to the quality of products. In a modern day marketplace where character is achieved in clothing through "distressed" jeans and shirts, many people tend to think of authenticity as something we manufacture—like theme parks. The French appreciate heritage because it contains the story of themselves—their identity. Who they are has been fermenting for years in the barrels of wines, and is etched deep in the stones of their 15th to 19th century architecture.

“The acknowledgement that one is great because one is standing on the shoulders of past giants is essential if we are going to be serious about our work,” says creative director Alexander Gallé, who has worked on French luxury brands YSL, Garrard, and Boucheron. And nobody could ever accuse the French of not being serious—least of all about their luxe. Philippe Mihailovich—a South African brand strategist and university professor who grew up with a chic Parisian perfumer mother whose own mother was a “Fath,” as in famous designer Jacques Fath—moved to Paris five years ago to investigate luxury brand culture. "With French luxury, it’s the story, the true authentic story," he explains. "Without that, without the heart, your brand is nothing.”

For many luxury brands the French touch is where the value lies—that combination of heartfelt whimsy, that elusive nuance that can't be described, but no doubt exists, in an elegant product that is built to last. That never loses its meaning. For the French, quality comes before any apparent branding. In fact, the love of money is an object of scorn in France. Branding grows out of reputation and is maintained by quality standards. Philippe Starck says, “We (the French) are the world guardians of abstractions. The creators have to keep an extreme rigueur to deserve the glance of their peers. Thus, France is the country of quality.”     

[17-Mar-2008]