The book I recently finished is called "Luxury," whose subtitle translates as "How luxury has lost its aura."

It is about how luxury goods are rising, and slowly declining, can not be said to decline, more accurately said to degrade.

The reason is very simple.

Originally, most of the luxury goods were very small and beautiful niche brands enjoyed by the royal family and aristocrats. It may be a handmade workshop, which was recognized by the royal family and aristocrats because of its outstanding craftsmanship. However, around the 1980s, when consortia and capital institutions found that the luxury industry was slowly rising, and because of the birth of the new middle class at that time, they found that more and more people had the need to buy luxury goods, so they turned the privilege that only a few people could enjoy into a product for the whole people. At the very beginning, the reform of the whole country has great economic benefits, their sales and product visibility have been greatly improved, but at the same time, the symbolic significance of luxury goods no longer exists, and they have lost the original halo and value.

In the past, when luxury companies were run by founders and their heirs, each luxury brand had its own unique style, reflecting the founder's creativity, and the store was usually located below the designer's studio. Nowadays, not only each store under a brand requires the same, but also the phenomenon of individuality giving way to identity among the brands of a group. Hollywood has traditionally used the same big-budget stars to make big-budget films that appeal to middle-market audiences; Luxury brands are taking a page out of Hollywood's playbook, hiring the same architects and using the same design techniques to lure the masses into their boutiques. Luxury goods in history have represented innovation, their design is revolutionary, they always bring new atmosphere. Now, however, they fear putting off customers by being different. -- "Extravagant!"
Luxury goods have gained a wider audience, especially when they offer products like perfume and handbags that are less expensive than haute couture. Let everyone have a luxury, it is no longer a luxury, but at the same time, those nobles and royals in order not to collide with others, will refuse to use such luxury goods.

Our big boss has been emphasizing to us that there are only two ways to make money, one is that you have a large number of users, and make a little bit of money on each user. The other model is that you don't have a lot of users, but you can find infinite value in your existing users. In fact, luxury goods have also gone through two different stages, when they were a minority hobby before. They can make a lot of money on those aristocrats, but when they choose to civilianize and globalize the product, the user base becomes much larger, but the corresponding profit is lower. Of course, this is only relative, luxury goods have always been a very profitable industry, even now between the price and the cost, the general difference is 12 times.

But I'm more interested in how he became a luxury than in how he became a luxury. In fact, the birth of luxury goods is a process that consumes a lot of time and energy, and their time is not even calculated in "years", but in "generation".

Take Hermes, which is really one of the few that still retains the luxury "integrity", for example:

Hermes was born in 1837, he is a harness brand, so his logo is a horse leading a car, in which the horse is the protagonist. In the first 100 years, Hermes was diligent in the production of harness, until the 1920s, the grandchildren of the founder, are very keen on art, and have countless private collections. Hermes began to expand its products to handbags, travel bags, gloves, belts, jewelry, notebooks, watches, ashtrays, silk scarves and other products.

The birth of luxury brands contains too much time and luck, there is a Hermes spread so far, there may be thousands of other harness brands that year, because they can not cross the river of time, and die in the middle, this is a very small probability of things. If you want to imitate the practice at that time, get mass, rapid brand building program, in fact, it is very ridiculous, but modern people are really very anxious and anxious, so we often can't afford to wait, will use too much anxious, and ultimately not worth the loss.

In addition to time, luxury brands also have their own routines, and according to this book, the main methods are actually these three.

First, use its history to highlight its value and status.
In fact, every luxury brand has a long history, and some good stories can always be gathered from the past history to piece together a past, which is actually something that many consumers, especially some middle-class consumers are happy to talk about.

The second point is that they often do some exaggerated design to grab the headlines.
When I was young, when I looked at some photos of fashion shows, I would think that the designer seemed crazy, why would anyone wear such clothes to go out? It is not used at all, or even unreasonable, what is the use of such clothes design, but it is said in this book that designers do such exaggerated and heavy taste works in order to seize the front page headlines and let more people pay attention to the brand. In the luxury category, the sales volume of women's ready-to-wear is very, very small, only about 5%.

I can't appreciate this weird style anyway

The third point is to let celebrities wear their works and stand in front of everyone.
Luxury brands put a lot of effort into hooking up with Hollywood stars, especially when they are going to the Academy Awards, and they will go out of their way to help them (winners and presenters) match their outfits.

Dressing celebrities on the red carpet is the most effective and least expensive way to advertise luxury goods. -- "Extravagant!"

To this end, they will even build some internal celebrities, such as Gucci, its creative director Tom Forde in front of the people, began to give magazine and television interviews, the interview scene is often arranged in one of his palatial mansions, the press conference to create a conversation, and the rich people. So his every move became a favorite gossip for the column. Tom Forde and the Gucci brand soon became synonymous with hedonism, and the group sold a staggering number of handbags.

Pretty handsome, right?

He went on to become the creative director of Saint Laurent, he went on to create his own brand (Tom Ford is also known to everyone), and now he has also entered the film industry, directing two films that have very good reputation, is a very talented person.

But what impressed me most was Giorgio Armani's approach.

In New York, Armani hired Lee Rezwell, the sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as his "special events coordinator." Ms. Rezweil wore Armani everywhere she went: ballet theaters, opera houses, charity celebrations and more. Her circle of celebrity friends also caught the attention of photographers, and it wasn't long before they all started wearing Armani clothes. In Hollywood, Armani hired Wanda McDaniel, a social news editor with an extensive network who had served as a bridesmaid at Maria Schlieffer's wedding to Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1986. McDaniel has the right mix of tradition and Hollywood wisdom, and her job is to get more Hollywood stars to wear Armani clothes. McDaniel had lunch with celebrity promoters, managers and agents. Armani quickly became the go-to clothing brand for producers, executives and politicians.

The industry credits Armani and McDaniel with starting the red carpet design trend.

The most important thing is that before this McDaniel was just a newspaper reporter, Armani through their own resources and channel advantages, took her into the fashion circle and celebrity circle, and trained her to become a fashion socialite, she served as Armani's brand ambassador in the second year, she married the famous producer Al Rudin (do not know whether there is a necessary connection between the two). So, when Giorgio Armani entered a low period, the former female journalist and now the socialite also stuck with her.

There are many such touching stories in ancient Chinese history, all because of the "grace of re-creation", so they say that they are willing to "do cattle and horses" for him all their life.

When a brand has a very large platform effect, it will get very great value to support its own network celebrities and celebrities, which is an investment in the future, rather than just the gains and losses and pros and cons of the moment.