Dana Thomas is stuffing envelopes with copies of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre and writing notes to go with them. What to say to Bernard Arnault, chairman of Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, one of the world’s biggest producers of luxury goods? “Oh, I dunno. ‘I hope you enjoy my book’,” she says. Arnault will have a fit.
The French mogul is fingered as a fiendish money-making former property developer with no artistic sensibility and Louis Vuitton is characterised as the McDonald’s of the luxury industry. “A million served,” says Thomas drily. The logo is as recognisable as the golden arches. “It really is. I would certainly put it in the top 10, along with Nike, Coca-Cola.”
That actually could be music to Arnault’s ears. It means Louis Vuitton is selling stupendously and making pots of money for the tycoon and his shareholders. But, for devotees, the message is devastating. It means the famous logo no longer has the cachet it once had. It still costs an arm and a leg, yet those buying are not the aristocratic clients who coveted craftsmanship and exclusivity. Instead, they’re the new luxury-obsessed middleclass consumers addicted to brands, not for quality, but for what they represent. And now they don’t even have that…
Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre, by Dana Thomas, is published by Allen Lane, $32.95.
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