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On the skin of a bon vivant
Who dresses important men? Which jeweller would be chosen to design the wedding ring of a heiress? Where do millionaires get married? What watch do important financiers wear? These are the deluxe products that you wear over your skin
The dressing room of a mansion hides, multiplied by infinite, a universal knowledge of maternal wisdom: Anything that touches your skin must be of the best quality possible. Each object susceptible of being touched by a luxury-lover hides a complicated manufacturing process in which hundreds more designers, experts, and craftsmen participate, compared to any other garment or accessory made for the masses.
It is very easy to determine what is best: first-rate materials, perfect design, nearly artistic manufacture and perfect service. The brands that manage to fulfil those requirements – that is, to give rich people what they want – are on the path to become multinationals similar to Cartier, Hermès, Manolo Blahnik or Ermenegildo Zegna.
Close to large fortunes
Excellence and money have always sought each other through history. Their meetings throughout history have led to legendary and capital firms of magnificent shop windows. Large empires, and especially the British and French empires, turned Paris and London into paradises for buyers, longing to stand out for wearing over their bodies the most expensive, the newest, the most special.
The large fortunes made during the Industrial Revolution were the key that turned New York, Milan and, later on, Tokyo, into luxury supermarkets, while nowadays we see how the most important brands are moving towards the Asian continent, where young wealthy people long to own the limited haute couture production, the recently discovered diamonds, the crocodile bags and the watches whose prices are around one million Swiss francs.
It is Asia, and especially China, where the highly luxurious market starts seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after almost disastrous 2009 sales. Economics students learn that luxurious items remain unaffected by the crisis, but the current recession has also hit the large international luxury brands with a strength that contradicts all economy theories, with losses around 10%.
Manual of the connoisseur
Economic turbulences also have a positive aspect: in the end, this is a call for good sense, it has made companies think that they no longer will sell anything at any price. But in the case of luxury, this call for good sense can put an end to important masters such as designer Christian Lacroix, in the past king of the haute couture catwalk and recently brought done by bankruptcy.
There are still many exquisite designers left, who provide exclusive services that create, custom-made real objects of desire. Some of them have waiting lists and others only accept customers by appointment. We have travelled the world to put together a list of people, the only ones that connoisseurs allow touching their skin. Our selection does not respond to the criteria “what less!”, but “to the top”.
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Published in Fashion and Beauty by Malena Mangas on 10/03/2010
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