Meaningful Luxury Brands

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the significant change in demand towards meaningful brands - brands that are creating tangible and beneficial value that helps people get more out of life. In essence, people, including luxury consumers, want brands that are more socially aware rather than focused on unnecessary opulence. This of course got me thinking about the impact this shift may have on luxury products.

Luxury has been, and will continue to be about two things:

1. Communicating a lifestyle/story
2. Quality craftsmanship

Communicating a Lifestyle

When buying luxury, we buy the story behind the brand, not the product.  In this month's UK Vogue, the Editor's Letter mentioned just this - as a designer, you need to create your own stand-out universe; you need to inspire!  It's this inspiration that goes beyond the products to create a lifestyle. When you buy it, you feel a part of that story associating yourself with a particular lifestyle.

Having said this, for people, today, to publicly associate themselves with this lifestyle/story, there is a heightened expectation for the brand to operate with society, the environment and the future in mind. Take Galliano for example - Natalie Portman refused to wear a Dior gown at the Oscars because of his actions.  She did not want to associate herself with Dior as it would say something about her. Our expectations and scrutiny towards the ethics of brands will continue to increase. There is zero tolerance for brands, even luxury ones (including their leaders and public figures) to demonstrate less than positive contributions.

As an aside, I tend to believe luxury brands are in a great place to contribute strong innovation in technology (i.e. high performance automotive, new textiles, etc.) and design, as their audience tends to have a high proportion of early adopters, which can influence the rest of their industries. 

People will continue to want the things they buy to say something about who they are. Take the Prius for example - people aren't as likely to buy a standard Corolla with hybrid technology as they are a Prius.  This is because the design of the Prius is more outwardly associated with being environmentally friendly than the Corolla with a hybrid sticker on the back.  Therefore, the Prius offers greater social value as its environmental association transfers to its owner.

The desire to craft our identities through association isn't going anywhere.  I mean we even go as far as to check ourselves into places we're at through Facebook or Foursquare to create "social currency" and build our online identity.  Luxury remains in a strong place to create a desired lifestlye, for which people want to associate, however it must be good natured, ethical and contributing something positive to have longevity.

Quality Craftsmanship

With this shift in behaviour - thinking about society on the whole and being more sustainable - it is becoming rather faux pas to buy for the sake of being flashy and to have more.  The day of keeping up with the Joneses and having the biggest homes and most stuff is on its way out. Rather, it looks better to show people that you buy for long-term value.  

This is where luxury has a strong hold.  Many luxury brands are not new, and if they are, they have done something to establish a reputation for amazing quality and craftsmanship.  Hence, many luxury brands have a strong heritage - going back to buying a story - so when someone buys a luxury product, not flashy rather classic items, it indicates they are buying long-term quality. So rather than buying many less expensive things, people see purchasing fewer luxury items as an investment.

Therefore, moving forward it will remain essential for luxury brands to balance setting design and style trends with maintaining classic design and quality craftsmanship to continue creating items that will be seen as investment pieces.

All-in-all this shift in demand for better brands will not change luxury businesses fundamentally.  They will continue to create 'stand-out universes' that people want to be a part of, and they will leverage their heritage to prove smart long-term value. However, they, like all brands, must choose to contribute to society, nature, the future, etc. rather than do harm for short-term gain.