Luxury pushes beyond the store

Luxury brands have found it hard to come to terms with the shift in consumer shopping habits from retail to online. For several years they have dipped their toes in the water of digital, but with little commitment and much hesitation (until recently). This is understandable. Often for luxury products, the justification for higher prices is only evident upon seeing the item in real life, or it can sometimes be intangible. These assets are hard to replicate when seen on a computer screen. A store’s retail environment allows the company to control every aspect of the brand experience. Someone checking out the Louis Vuitton website could be using a slow computer in an old browser; the experience will suffer, and there is nothing the brand can do about it. Much more sensible then to invest in concept stores, such as the recent one in Selfridges. But there needs to be a focus still about managing the brand and courting attention beyond the four walls of the shop.

So it should be of little surprise to see that recently luxury has been looking to broaden its horizons in the physical space, aiming to brand experiences that seamlessly fit into the lifestyle that they think is associated with their brand. This was evident in no small part when Zeitgeist took a trip recently to St. Tropez. Before even entering the town, visitors were greeted with the sight of mega-yachts and enormous Gin Palaces, and – on one of the days Zeitgeist visited – evidence of the relatively recent collaboration between Gucci and Riva (see above picture). Such a partnership probably helps the former more than the latter. It certainly helps validate the clothing company’s brand, which sometimes fails to leverage its relatively strong heritage. Walking away the port – past the recycling collections strewn with empty bottles that had once contained vintage wine and champagne – toward the famous Place des Lices brings you face-to-face with the hotel White 1921. This is one of LVMH’s newest incarnations, an eight-room hotel.

It was a beautiful hotel to behold, and had just opened the week Zeitgeist was visiting. Though much in need of a lunchtime glass of champagne – the brand here makes the most of its ownership of several champagne labels – the dining area was sadly not open until the evening. White 1921 is not alone as a recent example of hospitality being managed by a luxury brand. LVMH’s first such hotel was back in 2010 in Courchevel, named Cheval Blanc. More recently, Bulgari have launched their own hotel in London’s Knightsbridge area, close to the Mandarin Oriental hotel. The St. Regis hotel in New York now has a small collection of fashion-related suites, including the Dior Suite. All this is about embracing a certain idea, a crystallising of what it means to be living a particular lifestyle. The question for LVMH begins to arise as to whether, strategically speaking, having one arm of your company (Dior in this case) having a room owned by St. Regis creates any significant competition between the hotels you are opening elsewhere in the world. The more they open, and the more branded suites appear under competitor’s names, the stickier this situation could get.

Releasing products that compete for the same consumer type is never a good idea, and is a mistake General Motors made. A very good essay on this is available in Richard Rumelt’s ‘Good Strategy / Bad Strategy’. The market is becoming crowded. Hermès has side-stepped this by designing luxury apartments in Singapore. Some companies have thought at a more granular, perhaps relevant, level. Trunk-maker Moynat have teamed up with the famous Le Meurice hotel in Paris by providing French chef Yannick Alléno with a roll-in trunk so he could cook breakfast for guests in the comfort of their own room. It’s an inspired idea that retains the original idea of what makes the brand special and heightens it by creating a unique experience for the consumer. The New York Times reports,

The chef’s breakfast trunk is genuinely designed to travel, its porcelain plates held upright with leather straps and its cutlery in drawers. Mr. Alléno already has plans to send it to hotels where he has connections, first in Dubai in September, then to Courchevel in the ski season and on to Marrakech. At each destination, he will make a personal appearance and demonstration.

Similarly, Prada has thought about how best to showcase its ready-to-wear line, in this case including its clothing in the sumptuous film The Great Gatsby, due out next summer. The highlight of Zeitgeist’s time in St. Tropez was in visiting one particular boutique. Christian Dior, while not be a brand one immediately associates with good food, featured an open courtyard that hosted a cafe dedicated to indulgent delights. Mr Alleno was also responsible for the food here. It was an impressive exercise in brand management… and excellent profiteroles.

Managing Luxury Online

After the New York, London, Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks – which Dazed condenses into some key trends – comes the hard sell. We know that increasingly people are shopping online, not only while in the comfort of their home but also while out and about, with 25% of shoppers on their phone looking at a store’s website at the same time as they are in a physical shop, according to ForeSee. The stats for those luxury demographics bear even more consideration; Luxury Daily recently reported that 20% of those earning $150k p.a. or more shop via their phones.

As usual the Louis Vuitton show in Paris was streamed live online. The brand was one of the leaders in pioneering the idea of making such events available to hoi polloi. While some esoteric fashionistas may turn their noses up at the democratisation of luxury, they are increasingly swimming against the current as such efforts become more commonplace. Mere days after Marc Jacobs had taken his bow at the end of his latest collection for Louis Vuitton, the site fashionshow.louisvuitton.com was alive with myriad content, including in-depth interviews with Jacobs et al. It’s a beautiful microsite and worth checking out. At the weekend Zeitgeist decided to browse the Vuitton website from the comfort of his bed on his iPhone. One of the nice little things about the Louis Vuitton website is that to navigate there, all you need type in is “lv” and you are redirected to the site. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the mobile internet, where Zeitgeist was instead directed to a website for car insurance. Not a pleasant experience. It’s all the more important to have bought these keywords for mobile devices when the user will find typing less easy and is also likely to have less time than when they are using a desktop computer. It’s a shame because otherwise Vuitton’s digital presence is above reproach.

Worse still was when Zeitgeist then tried to visit Gucci by typing in “Gucci” into their Safari browser on the iPhone. The Gucci logo appeared and all seemed well until it transpired that he had arrived at the German site. Rookie mistakes like this do a disservice to a brand, and hurt it all the more the more luxurious it is.

On the more impressive side, the always admirable Lanvin, doyenne of Mount Street and invader of Savile Row, has finally launched a European e-commerce site, showcasing, as Luxuo puts it, “Lanvin’s dynamic style, the spirit of Alber Elbaz, and the creative wealth of its collections”. The site as whole manages to convey elegance, insouciance, history and contemporary style. Luxury brands have had a hard time adjusting to the online revolution, uncomfortably wondering how to translate the rarefied atmosphere of a boutique into the world of the Internet. Fashion’s Collective puts it best, in an article on redefining exclusivity,

The answer is to redefine what exclusive means. Rather than exclusive being the clientele the brand attracts, it should instead be the experience the brand conveys. Here, the focus shifts to the brand to provide value online just as they do offline. By curating the images, videos, copy, content and experience a brand publishes online, exclusivity is created.

While others have floundered, Lanvin passes the test with flying colours. Very impressive and very distressing news for the Zeitgeist credit card.