What is Luxury?

This question divides traditional stakeholders. In most cases, it combines luxury with the following qualifiers:

• Excellence, exceptional masterpiece, high tradition, know-how, creating lavish, unprecedented achievement, precious commodity, limited edition, produced extremely expensive,

• But also dream, magic, poetry, happiness, adventure, achievement, technological boldness, innovation, cult object, produces mythical

• Finally, assertion of social status, a sign of wealth, prestige and power, a safe haven …

The Luxury sector could be represented by 3 circles:

The first circle is the “SUPERLUXE accessible to few.” The products are so unique and made to measure: haute couture, luxury watches, fine jewelry, works and objects of art, palaces, china, silverware, glassware, cars, luxury yachts, private planes.

The world market is estimated at 45 billion dollars.

Example: LVMH embarked on yachts “Hyperluxe.” The Group has signed an exclusive agreement with Egeria, a Dutch investment company, to acquire Royal van Lent, a Dutch shipyard specializes in designing and building custom yachts. Royal van Lent built only a few yachts over 50 meters each year. Minimum price: about $ 30 million dollars for ships that cater to the world’s most wealthy clients. But rather than diversification, we prefer to speak of LVMH widening “the range of products and services top luxury.”

The second circle corresponds to the traditional sectors of luxury ready-to-wear, pens, scarves, bags, accessories including shoes, hats …

The purchase of these products or services is the result of a rational decision in which, seeking the highest quality, the customer agrees to pay more because of the brand, expressing the membership of a particular social status.

The world turnover is 57 billion dollars.

The third circle includes affordable luxury perfumes, cosmetics, tourism and leisure luxury wines and spirits, gourmet food, sports, hifi. This is for John Castarède “a luxury of sensation and pleasure.”

The world revolves around sales of 125 billion dollars.