All about Yves

The meaning of luxury, according to YSL creative director Stefano Pilati, has been somewhat lost of late, or at least transformed, as designer brands have jumped on the globalisation bandwagon, and now have to deal with the ramifications of the abundance / scarcity dichotomy.

“[I]t’s such a contradiction, because we want to be luxurious and have 300 shops all around the world, but you can’t be luxurious with 300 shops around the world.”

It’s an interesting comment, and one that certainly rings true. So many brands – in and out of the fashion world – designate themselves as being in the ‘luxury’ or ‘premium’ sector, it’s hard to know where the market starts and ends; it certainly helps dilute the meaning of words like ‘luxury’. However, with luxury groups aplenty recording impressive financial results of late, one would be hard pushed to see LVMH or PPR making any drastic redefinitions of what luxury is. You can read the rest of his comments to the fashion hipster’s bible, AnOther, here. Zeitgeist, for purely work-related reasons of course, is off to Paris at the weekend for the final days of the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Petit Palais. Can’t wait.