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| Hailee Steinfeld for Miu Miu, shot by Bruce Weber |
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| Coco Rocha for Zac Posen Resort 2012 |
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Mmmm
Thursday, June 2, 2011
An Asian Thing that is Both Luxurious & Cultish, part I
In Asia the hunger for luxury items is gluttonous, and growing. East Asian countries have been happily chomping at the (Hermes) bit
According to Radha Chadha and Paul Husband in The Cult of the Luxury Brand; Inside Asia's Love Affair With Luxury, there are definite winners in the hearts and wallets of the Asian people; companies that score the highest both in terms of annual sales and in brand image scores. In Tokyo, Seoul or Shanghai you may be able to find just about every luxury brand imaginable (and their diffusion line and their design collaborations and their super rare/high visibility/highly unique/SUPER COOL pop-up stores), but there are a handful of brands that hold unwavering dominance and likability over all else. And I'm not kidding about the hordes of competitors that these 10 brands face within Asia- literally, there is not a luxury brand on earth that does not make some kind of appearance and, more often than not, have at least one store somewhere.
Take Hong Kong as an example; See By Chloe? Popular, well represented. Tsumori Chisato? Ditto. The RVCA x Opening Ceremony collaboration? Had it's launch party at Lane Crawford! And the same for the Jill Stuart line of cosmetics, Armani Fiori, The Row, Just Cavalli, Nicholas Kirkwood, A.P.C, Yohji Yamamoto x Propaganda eyewear and Tom Ford women's r2w. With such abundance one would think that sales would be more evenly spread across the brands, but "while Asia is a competitive market...consumers are more interested in the winners".
WHO ARE THESE 'WINNERS'?
Asia has LV FEVER and the only cure is MORE VUITTON COWBELL.
Hong Kong has 7 stores, China has 34 stores across 29 different cities, Japan has a whopping 54 stores, Tokyo alone has 11 Vuitton stores, Seoul has the grand number of 13.
There is serious money to be made, in my opinion, because these societies can be directed and told what to buy. Asian consumers are diligent, thorough and feel deeply legitimized by brand name goods. This is, obviously, a huge generalization and may come off as derogatory, which is not my intention. I only mean to suggest that there is much more of a collective culture in fashion; acting on trends is an inclination that is natural and good. In general, Asians demand quality and they expect high brand visibility (monograms, gleaming hardwear, a highly recognizable print or signature colour), as well as a strong brand history.
According to Radha Chadha and Paul Husband in The Cult of the Luxury Brand; Inside Asia's Love Affair With Luxury, there are definite winners in the hearts and wallets of the Asian people; companies that score the highest both in terms of annual sales and in brand image scores. In Tokyo, Seoul or Shanghai you may be able to find just about every luxury brand imaginable (and their diffusion line and their design collaborations and their super rare/high visibility/highly unique/SUPER COOL pop-up stores), but there are a handful of brands that hold unwavering dominance and likability over all else. And I'm not kidding about the hordes of competitors that these 10 brands face within Asia- literally, there is not a luxury brand on earth that does not make some kind of appearance and, more often than not, have at least one store somewhere.
Take Hong Kong as an example; See By Chloe? Popular, well represented. Tsumori Chisato? Ditto. The RVCA x Opening Ceremony collaboration? Had it's launch party at Lane Crawford! And the same for the Jill Stuart line of cosmetics, Armani Fiori, The Row, Just Cavalli, Nicholas Kirkwood, A.P.C, Yohji Yamamoto x Propaganda eyewear and Tom Ford women's r2w. With such abundance one would think that sales would be more evenly spread across the brands, but "while Asia is a competitive market...consumers are more interested in the winners".
WHO ARE THESE 'WINNERS'?
Asia has LV FEVER and the only cure is MORE VUITTON COWBELL.
Hong Kong has 7 stores, China has 34 stores across 29 different cities, Japan has a whopping 54 stores, Tokyo alone has 11 Vuitton stores, Seoul has the grand number of 13.
There is serious money to be made, in my opinion, because these societies can be directed and told what to buy. Asian consumers are diligent, thorough and feel deeply legitimized by brand name goods. This is, obviously, a huge generalization and may come off as derogatory, which is not my intention. I only mean to suggest that there is much more of a collective culture in fashion; acting on trends is an inclination that is natural and good. In general, Asians demand quality and they expect high brand visibility (monograms, gleaming hardwear, a highly recognizable print or signature colour), as well as a strong brand history.
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