Entrepreneurs: The Future Guardians of Luxury Brands
Luxury began as Art. Expressions of an artisan’s unique soul and inner vision, the artist’s brand. It has fallen away from its beginnings as product has begun to eclipse the brand. But luxury requires a unique brand identity and…
“Brand identity resides beyond the product, and which the product cannot betray”
Herein begins a return to the vision of the luxury brand, brand identity and the emergence of Luxury Entrepreneurs. Luxury understood as emanating from Art and an artistic sensibility, is being led by a new generation of luxury entrepreneurs challenging the current dominance by brand portfolio conglomerates of the very definition of luxury; what has emerged is luxury as a culture.
The new luxury entrepreneur builds her business by embracing artists driven by cultural rather than commercial values; she affects a brand transformation of the art into products which maintain the integrity of its original creation and creator yet still enjoys commercial success. She does so by staying true to the brand’s unique identity where the product is the means by which the brand expresses and sustains itself; it precedes the product, as a seed precedes a flower and its bloom.
This challenges conventional strategies for in most brand portfolio management approaches, the brands are managed through the lens of product development. Driven by an ever ascending consumer-centric society, public companies are driven to seek and create “the next and the new“. However, satisfying the demand curve and shareholder value risk diminishing the brand aura as an exclusive and unique brand experience. Gradually, the artisan and her art are marginalized.
The Luxury Entrepreneur’s vision is different. At retail, collections are curated much as a gallery or a world class collector might. Complementary lifestyle products are presented as works of art which, by their breathtaking elegance, cause us to stop to view them and beckons us by their beauty to purchase them as one. Luxury becomes a culture not a price, a set of values and sensibilities transforming art and artisans into purveyors of products that are keepsakes, presented as brand experiences. They are modern and timeless together. Modern in that they support and sustain contemporary artists and artistry, timeless in that they touch us in the deepest recesses of our souls in ways that time cannot alter.
