FT Business of Luxury Summit | Debating the Future of the Industry

| Intelligence

MONTE CARLO, Monaco — The global luxury industry has descended on the luxurious and beautiful principality of Monaco to discuss the future of luxury at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit at a time when there seem to be far more questions than answers. I am delighted to be representing Luxury Society, which is an official media partner of the conference. To start off the conference, we heard from Bernard Arnault, Chairman

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Luxury Briefing Conference | Exploiting the potential of new markets

| Intelligence

LONDON, United Kingdom - By now, it is well known that Japan, Western Europe and North America are already well into recessionary mode, but emerging markets have not been spared either. In India, so the wisdom goes, people spend for occasions but during this year's Diwali Festival, usually brisk sales of diamonds have stalled, as consumers tighten their belts. In China, at a major luxury goods fair in Shanghai, accessibly-priced merchandise moved, but the most pricey items sat on the shelf. Perhaps more than ever before, luxury businesses need to seize new business opportunities in emerging markets, but the market context there is changing so fast, it is hard to keep up with it all. James Ogilvy has convened a…

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Everybody’s talking about | Fashion phones

Global Briefing | Global Currents

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Nokia 7900 Crystal Prism Phone"][/caption] LONDON, United Kingdom - Something is in the air. Earlier this week, we received a mysterious package in the post from Nokia. Inside, we found a 7900 Crystal Prism phone, complete with a Sapphire crystal and engraved design by French graphic designer Frederique Daubal, who has previously collaborated with Paul Smith and Colette, the iconic Paris fashion concept boutique. Not only this, the fashion and technology blogosphere has been abuzz about Tag Heuer's branded mobile phone, priced to compete with the Vertu phones, at 3900 euros (or about $6000). Previously, other fashion brands including Prada, Armani, and Levis have launched mobile phones with much hype and fanfare. To top it all…

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Luxury Interactive reveals online luxe race

| Fashion 2.0

Just digest these figures for a moment: Coach's online business now has revenues of over $100m per year -- the same as what Gucci's new flagship on 5th Avenue is expected to sell.  Neiman Marcus has broken the $500m in sales barrier online. In the last year alone, wealthy consumers' use of social networks such as Facebook and MySpace has rocketed from 27% to 60%, a growth rate of more than 120%. And, people are snapping up uber-luxe products online -- DeBeers regularly sells single diamonds worth more than $25,000 on its ecommerce site and 20ltd.com has sold items worth twice this much.These were amongst the most interesting tidbits revealed at this week's Luxury Interactive conference held in London. The…

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World Luxury Congress: Looking eastwards

| Uncategorized

The World Luxury Congress, an annual gathering of luxury and fashion executives from around the world, was held in London earlier this week and I was able to attend due to a kind invitation from Milton Pedraza, CEO of The Luxury Institute, who moderated a panel I participated in earlier this year. A formidable roster of speakers and panelists implored participants to take heed of three themes that came up time and time again during the conference: the need engage with customers as human beings, the lightening speed of luxury development in emerging markets, and the missed opportunity for luxury on Internet. The conference had its ups and downs, but one of my personal highlights was the inspiring presentation given…

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