After many years working in luxury, I believe that luxury has always shown the best resilience to any crisis. It has spent centuries reinventing itself all the time and will do so one more time. One year ago, when someone asked me if I believed Luxury would bounce back and recover from this pandemic, that is what I said.
But then I remember I also added :
But let's be honest, it will get worse before it gets better.
Why do I strongly believe why we / you should always bet on Luxury?
- First, because luxury is about building long-term and perennial brands and because it has been there for so long, It has been forced to evolve and adapt for decades, even centuries for some. All the biggest recessions from the 19th and 20th century? Most of the luxury brands have been through it.
- Second, because if you carefully listen to the most resilient luxury companies today, they are ALL about people, humanity, sustainability, and inclusiveness. They had actually learned and evolved a lot already in the past 20 years.
Hermès announced in March 2020 that they would maintain the basic salary of their 15000 employees worldwide. Gucci launched #GucciCommunity to alleviate this crisis by “helping health services with equipment and powering the scientists who are working on vaccines and treatments” and making two separate donations of 1 million euros each to crowdfunding campaigns. Dolce & Gabbana funded Italy’s top university scientists. Giorgio Armani donated €1.25 million to hospitals in Milan and Rome. Bulgari helped purchase a state-of-the-art microscope for the Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital in Rome. LVMH converted some of its perfume factories to manufacture hand sanitisers.
Because it’s all about long term: they’ve had to evolve and adapt so many times, luxury brands are timeless AND relevant at the same time.
Third, because luxury being mostly an emotionally-driven industry, it tends to be one of the fastest to bounce back when a financial crisis subsides as consumers want to treat themselves with luxury goods and services to celebrate positive life changes when they finally happen.
Credit : Chanel
Fourth, because it’s all about excellence, quality & authenticity, making it a safe bet, always.
Fifth, because let's face it, the number of luxury consumers keeps growing (especially with the entrance of the youngest generations and of a new luxury consumer - read next post to know more) and ultra-rich people have never been so rich.