Session 57 summary
Most people associate luxury with France, but in reality France was probably one of the last countries to enter into luxury. Luxury does not have a particular country as its place of origin, every single country always have had luxury and every culture had luxury because people always had the concept of gift giving. People always had the feeling of giving something that is made best, best in affording it, etc. to someone they respect and love. Philippe likes to see it more in terms of gift-giving as opposed to the commercial activity but it is as well, but not always. People used to give gifts like; Egyptians giving funeral gifts. Philippe talks about the difference between art and luxury and the confusion in that area. He points out that in the western world the way they divide it is; something which is considered luxury is normally something that has a use value- it is functional. For example, an engraved boomerang has been beautified or ratified so it can be a gift from the chief to the best hunter in Australia or from the hunter to the chief. So it is a gift that has a functional value. But art does not have a function at all, in some places it does have the ability of storytelling but this is how Philippe makes the division between the two. When it comes to branding it is the same thing and it is not a new thing, in fact branding is something that has been with humans since the beginning of man because it is identity. The word branding comes from Brandt which means to burn and the process of being burnt into the skin is branding, people were branded on the body with stories about how many wives, how many children, how many people he fought, how many people he killed etc. which acts like the person’s passport. The basic form of human identification has been taken and worked on building an image, and images are the only thing the other person has of us. When looking at an ancient bowl there are engravings and markings on it, which does not say who made it but who owns it and most of the time it is branded by the owner. In the days of Golkonda where India had an advantage over the rest of the world for over 200 years with diamonds but still India today is probably one of the biggest for diamond cutting in the world but they don’t have the biggest jewellery brands in the world. The stones are actually branded, like the Kohinoor which is branded because it is special. Here it is about the place brand called Golkonda region and also a stone being branded. The owners in this case were not branding the stone, specifically not with their name, they gave it its own name, but normally it would be the owner who decides what name it is going to have. Historically it also happened that there were colours which were branded, i.e. branded colours, such as Tyrian purple which was considered luxury- status. It helped to differentiate who has a status-who are the nobles, these people would wear Tyrian purple which comes from a particular snail, at that time there was no fashion separation otherwise, and people wore simple rugs. After the Roman Empire came the Venetian state which was the luxury state and the wealth was coming primarily because of the trade with silk roots. It is interesting to see that the venetians built their own fleet of ships to go out and deliver the salt to the nearby countries and also colonize some on the way. Indians waited for people to make their way to India and buy everything- from diamonds to spices to silks and many more. Most of the exotic clothes that the queens were wearing were filled with jewels that were coming from India. So it was one of the most important places in the world, not only for diamonds but for many precious stones and for the clothes of the nobles. At that time it was not considered fashion but a uniform- a state uniform that a queen would wear to show her power and status, so the crafts people behind it were not really recognised. But this was the time when people separated art from luxury, in the days of old Egyptian era the craftsmen and artists were the same, sometimes they were even the priests. But the separation in the west was made during the renaissance and seeing artists as the new gods. That’swhenpeople started to differentiate, saying “can you teach us craftsmanship-yes”, “can you teach creativity-no”. So, that is why creativity is put on a higher pedestal, it is a talent, there is a mystique about it. So, in the west there is a bigger respect for artist and artisan even in the luxury they are absolutely needed.
In France, the French were mostly a peasant nation-agricultural nation, for the luxuries they had to purchase everything from abroad. So, Colbert who was King LouisXIV’s financial minister decided to start manufacturing everything in France- everything of quality, to stop imports and make them at home. If they didn’t have the knowh ow, they would steal the know how from elsewhere. It didn’t have to be a Frenchman making something, but whoever was the best in the world had to be encouraged to come to France, they spent a fortune and got tax free everything to attract all the talent to France- it was like hunting of talents and even today Paris hunts talents. Import had to stop because too much money was going out to Asia and France learnt the lesson from the Romans that one can bankrupt their economy by doing that so it was important to stop. They decided on no more imports, making everything at home and making it better so they can sell it for more, because the higher the price, the more profits they will make- so stop making cheap things, only make things of the best quality. The craftsmen had to take the textiles that they were making to the King’s representative and show the quality of what they were making and the representative would have to look at the work and approve it or disapprove it, and if he disapproved it then the craftsman can lose their licence to reproduce. So it was a very strict control and once it was approved, a little stamp was sown on to the approved standard which the man must continue to use, so again it’s the branding to say that it is the seal of the king and now a quality stamp. At the same time every craftsman also had to put their own mark on their work to take responsibility for what they are making. If something went wrong later the complaint can be put on him which would lead to losing the license of the craftsman. So French set out not only to create France a big retail or export of French-made goods, but they also set out to make every village and region into a brand. Every single village had to do something for export, they had to produce something to add to the greater wealth of France. People worked hard to produce good quality of goods and the bad quality ones were absolutely destroyed. They built up barriers for entry to reduce the competition.
There is a label that has now come up which is probably ten years old now, EPV ‘The excellence of French know-how’. It is a stamp that enterprises can apply for as a confirmation that they used traditional skills which has always been done in a particular field. It is pride to show transmission of craftsmanship and of knowledge, that’s a big, it is very honoured the craftsman passing on their knowledge and tradition and never gets lost as was the case in China under Cultural Revolution. They drew a very fine line between arts ‘n’ craft and luxury, every step in the process of luxury is what brings a refinement, is an innovation on the thread that is being used. From the beginning to the end craftsman takes full responsibility of what they make. It is not contacted art or one person does one thing and the other does another- that is a production line. When talking about luxury, one person makes it from the beginning to the very end whether it is a hand bag or a watch, they have to have the full knowledge, be the master craftsman making a masterpiece. The people of France still strive to be the very best in what they do and if they don’t then they take their names off the label. They do not produce for fair trade label. There is a very big difference of going for a fair trade label, which often means that the companies- the big groups haven’t been prepared enough to pay for it may be because the quality isn’t very good, fair trade doesn’t mean quality, organic is expected but not quality. Fairtrade is a little bit of almost colonial in its way- patronizing and that’s why not found in luxury. One doesn’t want people to buy from them because they feel charity and there is a danger of people feeling that they are buying to help. The French started to keep this mentality because they resisted the industrial revolution, that’s when Britain became super wealthy. But the French resisted it because it has so much respect for the craftsman and for craftsmanship and suffered greatly at that time. Eventually the French started to produce things through industrial process, primarily things such as perfume. They developed these designers as gods, the leading talented creators of the world and that was a big and important move for the French to get into mass production but the mentality has always stayed with the respect for craftsman and today 80% of the world’s leading perfume are these fashion designer perfumes. The people also get curious about the process, they would like to know even before the end product, like where the yarn is coming from, and there are so many interesting details and variations. So starting at very beginning of the materials till the very end step of the product, every process is adding value until the very end. There are concept store which offers niche designer goods, and many great brands had their beginnings there, it has beautiful collections of things one has never seen before, by people they’ve never heard of and that’s what make them so special. 50-60% of these concept stores do their business on platforms like ‘Farfetch’.
Everyone should aim to create masterpieces but it is difficult in some places because there is often the master-servant relationship that is created by the people and crafts people are often cheated just as workers in a factory, even when looking at their website it is all about the owners and their family but never about the creative person. Philippe has some problems with ‘Make in India’, because in France they never talked about Making in France, they talked about Paris Capitale Creation and Creative France, they talked about the gods of creation. They were creating something out of nothing, something people could not have imagined and that’s where the respect is coming from, the making comes afterward and one can make mistakes too but having that vision is where the respects comes. Philippe would like to see this Creating India start happening and talking about the process of craftsmanship and creation. But they are not and that’s why India is making for western luxury brands, the factories should be rejecting those brands and state that they have their own know-hows and don’t need to produce for other brands, they should only produce for themselves. Creativity is the closest the man can get to being god, it is a kind of big respect for a Human Being to be very talented and is able to create world out of nothing. It’s good to have a collective of creators and craftspeople but one needs to show what they are capable of, the best of their work and that is a business. They need to have those masterpieces, and get out there and let people see it. They can curate exhibitions to tour hotels, dept. stores, museums as pop-up road shows, maybe the government will sponsor that or the region would sponsor that. One of the main restrictions is that too much of what one makes is for the bridal market as it is huge, so why care about having to sell to the rest of the world when there is a massive local market.
The French took their craftsman to London where they did an exhibition showing the craftsmen at work, showing the kind of things that are being made through their old French tradition and it was very successful so they are building EPV as a label which people are looking forward to.
Philippe points out that one should; remember they are masters not servants. Show that they are creators. Show their masterpieces. Explain the entire process from thread to throne. Brand the villages and their expertise. Use Tribal Design Forum to create a luxury house. Let the work travel to be seen.
Philippe’s latest book is more written for the business and fashion schools to let them understand the hierarchy of how luxury works-that one needs to start at the top of that masterpiece and then come down, and it is easier to come down to something cheaper but it is very hard to start with something very cheap and then go up-it’s like gravity. It’s very much having that mentality of having the best craftsmen. They say sky is the limit, so one should set out to do something absolutely exceptional. Philippe thinks that that’s the main trick to it because then one gets noticed. One has to avoid chasing money and just challenge themselves to do the best they can achieve and then do other things which can make up for the living. It is about finding that balance-Freedom of having fun, just expressing themselves and finding themselves and not restricted to just earning money. It is finding the way forward.
About the Speaker
Philippe Mihailovich
Brand Consultant
Founder & President, HAUTeLUXE
www.philippemihailovich.com
www.hauteluxe.net
Philippe Mihailovich is considered as a leading academic and consultant in the field of Brand Management, specialising primarily in brand creation and brand narratives. He is a founding theorist of Brand Architecture and Brand Stretching. As a practitioner, he has been the Marketing Head of famous international brands such as Nivea, Wella (P&G) and British Telecom. As a consultant has assisted in the creation or repositioning of numerous challenger brands from private label to high end fashion and luxury houses, airlines and hotels. As the founder and President of HAUTeLUXE he currently works as a Brand Strategist specialising in modifying Brand DNA, Storytelling and story-building strategies primarily for the luxury industry in Paris and London, often as a sub-contractor to Communication and Content Agencies.
