Fashion and Luxury

What is fashion

Fashion can be many things: creativity, business, trend that people share, or a way to express personality. There is no consensus about what fashion is. Fashion is about impulse and desire.

We live not according to reason, but according to fashion.

Seneca, mid 1st century.

Fashion is a balancing act between the past and the future. To take the inspiration from the past is critical to the fashion company, then give this past a contemporary flavor. Fashion companies succeed in persuading us to buy new products every 6 month. As a business logic, it can be applied to different sectors and product categories. They do not only sell products, they sell experiences. Style is something that lasts across seasons, but trend is strongly related to seasons.

Trends

Fashion is about creating trends. The lifecycle of trends has three stage: introduction, peak and decline. The choice is made by the people who work in fashion industry, not by ordinary consumer. Fashion companies make the trend. Technology may also play an important role. Fashion is a system, the concept of pipeline refers to the supply chain. Trend can come from various sources, but eventually there is some direction for the whole system to go.

Dream factors

More than selling products, fashion companies sells ways of expressing ourselves through products. Creating dream factor is fundamental. Designer are not only talented inventors, but also are very powerful communication tools. Designers are key, but the concept must be supported by the whole media system. Communication plays an important role in creating the dream factors.

What is luxury

When you think about faction, you usually think about time, short product life cycle. But when it comes to luxury, it is first associated with price, exclusivity, selectivity. Luxury is something that is aspirational, not easy to get with that high price. Luxury is from Latin words ‘lux’ which means ‘light, bright’; and ‘luxuria’ which means ‘excessive’, ‘extravagant’. Luxury brands should combine these dimensions. Luxury is a subjective concept, and it depends on context (age, group, geography, etc).

Luxury products fall into 2 board categories:

1. Durable investments / goods: cars, real estate, jets, design objects
2. Personal goods: apparel, leather goods, shoes, jewels

Luxury should be associated with the concept of human touch, craftsmanship and excellence. Luxury as a business should have 4 elements:

1. strong branding related to aspirational and exclusive life style
2. superior quality and timelessness
3. premium pricing
4. stylish and extravagant design (aesthetic content has too be strong)

Luxury industry has to find balance between:

1. intrinsic values of the product
2. intangible elements: lifestyle and branding

Luxury has a lot to do with culture of the founder, the company and the country of origin. Culture is about attitudes, opinions, vision of the world, values. Luxury in France is an industry that conveys culture and identity of family, founder and brand. The French luxury is more mythological, timeless. It has a lot to do with heritage, art de vivre. Italian luxury is less about the past, but more about excellence in the entire value chain, in manufacturing, in innovation. It is more about ‘la dolce vita’, living well, hedonistic pleasures.

Not all rich people are luxury customers, nor all luxury customers are rich people. They are very heterogeneous. Luxury is not just an object, it is limited, not completely replicable. It is more than just expensive, it has to give values. You need a certain culture to understand it.

My Certificate

For more on Fashion and Luxury, please refer to the wonderful course here https://www.coursera.org/learn/mafash

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