29 Nov 2010

MA Diary - Seminar presentation

Today I handed in my finalized seminar presentation. I can't post it all here, since it's a powerpoint file, but here is the script and some images:

SEMINAR

SYNERGIES BETWEEN THE ART WORLD AND

THE LUXURY INDUSTRY

Key points:

· Promotional role of art and artists in this industry

· 3 case studies

· Fashion awards and art awards given by luxury companies

· Future developments

PROMOTIONAL ROLE OF ART AND ARTISTS IN THE INDUSTRY

“Luxury and art are both expressions of emotion and passion; therefore, the idea of integrating artwork in a store environment is a question of affinity”

Yves Carcelle, President and CEO of Louis Vuitton

During past years, there have been many new creative collaborations, exploring fresh avenues for synergies and business development between the art world and the luxury industry. Today, luxury brands regularly collaborate with artists to develop products and marketing materials, and even mobile museums.

There are a number of key reasons why luxury brands choose to make a cultural investement:

· Luxury brands heighten their aesthetic and perceived value. For market strategists in the luxury industry contemporary art has been very much a way to add value both in terms of prestige and profitability.

· Artists are feted by leading brands. While a relationship between art and fashion has always existed, over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding. And, this in turn has had an impact on the contemporary art world itself.

· Cultural investment is also seen as being helpful for brands that need to reposition, or that are entering a new market and need to establish their identity quickly. The benefits are diverse too. Cultural investment reflects the brand in the right light. It can help to attract a new sought-after customer profile or it can entertain and maintain the loyalty of existing customers by providing a positive brand experience

· It’s also widely seen as a great PR vehicle. The attraction is that the arts are forward-thinking and mould-breaking. It is beneficial to be associated with these qualities that commercially translate into the perception of being trend-setting

CASE STUDIES


1. Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. It is a center for contemporary art that presents exhibits by established artists, offers young artists a chance to debut, and incorporates works into its collection.

Araki, Marc Newson, Philippe Starck, Murakami, and Matthew Barney are some of the artists that have worked with the Fondation Cartier.

“The Fondation has given Cartier a positive image in the eyes of people who are not interested in jewellery or who would never in a thousand years wear a Cartier bijou. But now they look at Cartier more positively, with respect, and that’s exactly what I wanted.”

Their aim has always been to give freedom of speech to the artists and not interfere in the process of creation. It is linked to an image strategy as well as a subject of pride for the Cartier employees.

2. Louis Vuitton’s Young Arts Project

It is a creative and cultural collaboration between the super brand and five leading art institutions in London: Hayward Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, South London Gallery, Tate Britain and Whitechapel Gallery.

The iconic brand launches a three-year long support project for young artists. The three-year program, led by Louis Vuitton and SLG, which also incorporates the help of artists Chris Ofili and Charlie Dark, will give 200 underprivileged young Londoners real access to the inner workings of the art world. It aims to provide the participants with the skills and experience necessary to pursue a career in the arts - as curators and press officers, as well as artists.

1. Paul Smith in-store art exhibitions

Paul Smith stores, whether in London, Milan or Hong-Kong showcase not only his collections, but also the works of contemporary artists.

This celebration of contemporary British art and artists springs from Paul’s own personal affiliation and admiration.

By choosing to curate such unique, quirky and highly personal exhibitions, Paul Smith is reinforcing his iconic status as a quintessential British brand.

Among the more artistically-prone stores, there are: Paul Smith GLOBE, a store in the Heathrow Terminal 5 airport and SPACE Gallery, his first store in Japan, where the designer has hosted exhibitions from artists such as Valerie Phillips, Richard Woods, Thomas Giddings or Marcus James.


Fashion awards and art awards given by luxury companies

· MaxMara Art Prize for women, in collaboration with the Whitechapel

The prize winner gets an all-expenses paid six months residency in Italy. Maxmara gets an enviable foothold and high profile in the London art world.

  • The Fondation d’ Entreprise Montblanc de la Culture

Its purpose is to support and honour modern day patrons of the arts who have given their time, energy and money in order to encourage cultural life to flourish.

Such consistent patronage gives Montblanc the stature of nobility across the international cultural landscape.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

Though it may be true that the sheer number and variety of collaborations proposed in recent years have somewhat diminished their impact, and that some may have got out of hand with exceedingly commercial intentions, ties between the goods industry and the art world should not be abandoned. There is no doubting the excellent results of some of the collaborations. Contemporary art infused luxury with a great energy that resonated with consumers; and for artists, a new world of commercial opportunity was opened, separate from the pure art world.

And, in light of the current economy, perhaps the art world and luxury need each other now, more than ever.

24 Nov 2010

MA Diary - Annual Luxury Conference

The International Herald Tribune’s annual luxury conference brought together in London two dozen of the industry’s most esteemed creative and corporate executives,who offered their interpretations of ‘heritage’. When the event’s host, Suzy Menkes, first introduced the two-day London event, the celebrated fashion editor acknowledged that the definition of this year’s theme was “as slippery as the precise meaning of luxury.”

And while there were of course several common threads which were woven through the many speeches and round-table discussions on stage – such as the notion of authenticity based on a brand’s past values – it was striking to see just how diverse each speaker’s approach to harnessing heritage could actually be. Here are just a few highlights in their own words:

Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry

2326_angela_small
Reminiscing about her very first lunch meeting with Christopher Bailey five years ago as the pair set the course for the company’s future by leveraging the brand’s heritage icons (such as the prorsum knight, the check and the trench coat), she said: “We needed to connect the dots from the Prorsum catwalk collection to the millions of polo shirts we sell. The same customer should be wearing these, not multiple customers.”

Christopher Bailey, chief creative officer of Burberry

2327_christopher_small
“We needed to elevate and innovate those (brand) icons,” he said, likening Burberry to a beautiful diamond that had been trodden into the ground, just waiting for someone to polish each facet of the gem to help it to sparkle again. “If we were going to elevate this “dusty diamond”, we needed a razor-sharp vision.”


Patrizio di Marco, CEO of Gucci

2328_patrizio_small
When an audience member suggested that the company’s ‘Artisan Corner’ retail event project (which sees artisans travel to Gucci shops around the world making luxury goods ‘live’ in front of customers) was misleading like Louis Vuitton’s banned advertisement of hand-stitched handbags, he defended the strategy:

“What we have in the stores is not fake, it’s real. It truly implies a lot of work – manual work….I had people who told me that to bring artisans to the shops would be a bit cheesy, [well, it] may be but it’s real. I had people, old, young and even kids who just stood in front of these work benches of artisans making a jacket or a bamboo bag,… They were really moved. I can’t bring the whole world to Florence so I’m trying to be as clear as possible with this and many other references. Believe me, if you come to Florence, we are real.”

Paul Smith, designer

2329_paul_small
With his trademark self-deprecating style and kooky delivery, Smith pointed out that heritage, like the word luxury, is now overused in branding circles by poking fun at a “Heritage Festival” in Texas which was founded only in 2007. But he also reminded the audience that those luxury brands which we now call heritage brands were all at one point or another upstarts with no heritage to fall back on.

“The new boys – Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and me – we have to work out what our heritage is and how people will develop it in the future. What I’ve tried to do is get the balance right between the more classical luxurious things, the more everyday things and things that the young guys would wear.”

Mary-Adair Macaire, CEO of Pringle

2330_maryadair_small
On heritage: “Just because you had it in the past doesn’t mean you still have it today. And even if you have it doesn’t mean that you can sell it.”

On the codes of heritage: “Identify them, use them, even abuse them but don’t lose them.”




Margherita Missoni, accessories designer for Missoni

2331_missoni_small
“What I want to do is bring Missoni back to the time when…. it was rule-breaking,” she said, retelling the story of how her grandparents were “kicked out of Florence fashion week” in the late 1960s because they were considered too risqué by the establishment. “Only afterward it became a classic. There are other brands which maybe disturb you at first but they grow on you so what I would like to do is bring Missoni back to that. Eventually they’ll get used to the idea of our show not necessarily being pleasant at first sight.”

Unlike other designers working for big houses, she said, as the third generation of the family to get involved creatively, “I didn’t have to adapt my aesthetic to Missoni. I might have a different style but I have the same taste.”

Karl Lagerfeld, designer

2332_karl_small
On the legacy of Coco Chanel: “She was not only a designer but also a woman of her times. But she made mistakes at the end of her career. When the 60s started, she forgot that elegance had to change too. So she decided that miniskirts were horrible. Her standards were completely different. She said, ‘I asked men and not one man told me they love miniskirts’. Nobody dared to tell her. She said blue jeans were horrible too… Nobody wanted to be told by an old lady that miniskirts and jeans are no good. The result was that she lost her power.”

On designing for brands with different heritages: “When I took over [Chanel] everyone said don’t touch it; it’s dead. In a way it was a sleeping beauty…..but [my involvement later] became a blueprint for many others like Tom Ford for Gucci or Alber for Lanvin. I have more than one personality. People think I’m on such an ego trip. But I’m not. It’s a very strange gift. I can get out of people what they want to express but can’t."

On heritage: “I have no archives, I keep nothing. Other people can do that for me. I like now….I never think of what’s going on after me. I never think of what’s next. I only think of the moment."