Vanessa Friedman reports from the FT Business of Luxury summit in Vienna on how the luxury industry has emerged as a key economic player
RETAIL
Europe Looks to Luxury Industry in Times of Recession
This is the featured image caption
Credit: This is the featured image credit
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
Vanessa Friedman reports from the FT Business of Luxury summit in Vienna on how the luxury industry has emerged as a key economic player
For the first time, the EU’s executive body has recognised the high-end industry as the pillar of cultural and creative industries, explained Armando Branchini, president of the European Cultural and Creative Industries Alliance (ECCIA), Europe’s first united luxury lobby group.
The ECCIA brings together Altagamma, Italy’s luxury goods association, with France’s Comité Colbert, the UK’s luxury body Walpole, Meisterkreis in Germany and Spain’s Circulo Fortuny, according to the Financial Times.
“Buoyed by strong demand from China in particular, Europe’s luxury goods industry has grown by double digits in the last two years, while the eurozone economy has stagnated,” revealed Scheherazade Daneshkhu.
“ Europe’s luxury goods industry has grown by double digits in the last two years, while the eurozone economy has stagnated ”
“Luxury accounted for 3 per cent of Europe’s economic output in 2010 and 10 per cent of its exports. Luxury is one of the sectors in which Europe has a clear competitive advantage since European brands account for 70 per cent of the global market.”
Indeed the European luxury industry alone is said to employ over 1.5 million people directly, accounting for €414 billion in revenues – revenues which are of course taxed, contributing significantly to local economies.
With the recession in Europe showing no sign of abating, fashion editor Vanessa Friedman reports from the FT Business of Luxury summit in Vienna on how the luxury industry has emerged as a key player and how it is uniting to influence its own future.
To further investigate the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit on Luxury Society, we invite your to explore the related materials as follows:
– FT Business of Luxury 2012: Luxury is Now for the Masses and the Classes
– FT Business of Luxury 2012: In Conversation with François-Henri Pinault, PPR
– FT Business of Luxury 2011: Licensing vs Collaboration
Creative Strategist, Digital
Sophie Doran is currently Senior Creative Strategist, Digital at Karla Otto. Prior to this role, she was the Paris-based editor-in-chief of Luxury Society. Prior to joining Luxury Society, Sophie completed her MBA in Melbourne, Australia, with a focus on luxury brand dynamics and leadership, whilst simultaneously working in management roles for several luxury retailers.
