Earlier this week the Financial Times hosted its third annual ‘Business of Luxury’ conference in Venice. The event brought together some of the world’s most senior luxury executives, financiers and corporate decision-makers to discuss emerging trends and business models in the global luxury sector. Reuters was able to ask some of these executives what luxury meant to them and their answers were quite interesting, mostly relating to time, exclusivity and choice. A few of my favorites:
Federico Marchetti, chief executive and founder of online boutique YOOX: “Time. Time is luxury. In a fast-paced era, where technology is accelerating everything and everyone, that is true more and more. ‘Time is money’ is less important.”
Michele Norsa, chief executive of Salvatore Ferragamo: “Exclusivity. Being alone on a beach with a few close people. It’s more places than objects.”
Stanislas De Quercize, chief executive of jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels: “A piece of eternity on earth. We all would like to be eternal. We are not … we are all longing for something to stay for us. And for me, luxury is that. It’s a piece of eternity on earth because if you have beautiful jewellery or beautiful works it’s going to outlast you.”
Luc Vandevelde, founder and managing director of Change Capital Partners, previous chairman of Marks & Spencer: “There are two types of luxury to me. Having the freedom to do what you want to do in life is the ultimate luxury to me. Most of the time that would be measured by whatever financial needs you have but not always.”
“Luxury in terms of a material sense, it’s the kind of things you feel good with … it doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive …. Feeling good with a product or identifying yourself with a product, is what luxury is all about.”
We’ve talked about this idea of an emotional connection with luxury on Janus before. Check out all the respondents’ answers here.
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