Automakers look beyond the precipice toward an uncertain future
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Turnarounds & Nosedives
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Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
Automakers look beyond the precipice toward an uncertain future
With palpable signs that the iconic Hummer and Maybach brands might end up in the scrap yard, luxury auto analysts are preparing themselves for the worst. Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Co has admitted defeat after nine months of negotiations to acquire Hummer from General Motors. The Chinese firm failed to gain approval from state regulators, prompting GM to issue a statement that it will begin winding down the SUV.
Rumours of Maybach’s demise seem more credible too now that the Design VP at its parent company, Daimler, confirmed reports that he had not been asked by management to develop designs for the new Maybach model. Meanwhile, at Tata Motors, things are finally looking up three years after the Indian firm acquired Jaguar Land Rover from Ford. On the back of its first profitable quarter late last year, sales for Land Rover and Jaguar were up 62% and 55% respectively in February. The consensus at the latest Geneva International Motor Show was that luxury car makers face a make or break scenario based on this year’s sales.
Sources:
The Times – 16 Mar 10
EVO – 17 Mar 10
Luxury Insider – 2 Mar 10
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Luxury & Fashion Business Journalist, International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Vogue.com Strategic Consultant, Swiss Textiles Award, Diptrics
