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| Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Europe |
Today’s customer
spending pattern has changed. Seeing that high-end clients worldwide have abruptly
suppressed their craving for luxury goods, what was once considered a
recession-proof industry had been struck hard. Whilst
Chanel recently declared the layoff of 200 temporary employees — only more than
1 percent of its 16,000-employees, the daily newspaper “Le Parisien” called the news a bombshell.
No category in the luxury brand domain has been spared a
significant drop in sales including fine spirits, watches, clothing, jewelry
and yachts. Suddenly, the perception on the street is that luxury goods are
considered a sign of immorality, superficial and ostentatious. Restraint and
modesty are in. A French trend expert described the changes as nothing less than
“a revolution in values.”
Alain
Némarq, the chairman of Mauboussin, the prestige jewelry firm, said in an
interview that saving the luxury industry should be a national priority since
it employs 200,000 citizens in France and has become part of the French
heritage.
Rather than demanding
to keep the machine going by pumping out high-price hand bags, shoes and other
goods, he proposed the impossible: the entire luxury industry should slash
prices. “We need a return to reason, decency, discretion, beauty and creativity
— in other words, to true values,” Mr. Némarq said.
“This whole
crisis is like a big spring housecleaning — both moral and physical,” Karl
Lagerfeld, from Chanel, said in an interview. “There is no creative evolution
if you don’t have dramatic moments like this. Bling is over. Red carpety covered
with rhinestones is out. I call it ‘the new modesty.’ ”
In keeping
with the new national mood — and in respect to the hard economic reality, designer
Nathalie Rykiel will show the new Sonia Rykiel collection not with a grand spectacle
for 1,500 people in a gigantic rented room, but with two small 200-guest
mini-shows in her boutique on the Boulevard St.-Germain.
“It’s a
desire for intimacy, to go back to values. We need to return to a smaller
scale, one that touches people. We will be saying, ‘Come to my house. Look at
and feel the clothes. ” she said over lunch at the Café de Flore.
reference: nytimes.com, jdrazure.wordpress.com
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