The Return of Luxury.(International Edition; SPECIAL REPORT)(Viewpoint essay)

Byline: Nick Foulkes

Top brands are getting back to their core values--and customers. It's about time.

It is a pretty depressing business trudging on through this downturn, recession, depression or whatever your euphemism of choice for the financial Gotterdammerung. And in the midst of such overpowering dysphoria luxury might seem to have little point. However, I would argue that these are the times when we most need cheering up with small helpings of the better things that life has to offer.

Nevertheless, our relationship with luxury is changing. On the most fundamental level, the very overt way in which we have used our possessions to demonstrate our status and communicate how we wish to be perceived by others is no longer regarded as acceptable. The old maxim of nothing succeeding like success needed constant reinforcement through the acquisition of trophies--yachts, jets, art. The last chairman of Merrill Lynch,

John Thain's $1.2 million office refurbishment spree would probably have been regarded as perfectly unremarkable 18 months ago; today it falls somewhere between Imelda Marcos's heroic support of the footwear industry and Nero's musical accompaniment to the flames engulfing Rome.

It would appear that an understanding--really, a misunderstanding--developed whereby working long hours and making a great deal of money were equated with virtue. For a while, we all colluded in this status quo, with the world's rich spending their money in a very public way for the entertainment of the rest of us, who looked on as if at some ancient Roman spectacle. The growth of celebrity culture encouraged us to gawp at their excesses and mimic their appearance and habits. We became multilingual experts in brand literacy, and luxury became increasingly regarded as a commodity. For anyone who wanted to get in on it, the grandes maisons de luxe obligingly lowered their entry requirements. If we could not afford the ultraproducts then we were able to able to start on the nursery slopes. I cannot remember when I first heard the term "entry-level luxury," but I must admit that my heart sank when I did.

And I suppose it was this commoditization of luxury that struck me as prima facie, oxymoronic. I am a snob and I like my luxury to be just that: recherche, a little arcane and, quite frankly, not for everyone. Perhaps it is indicative of some psychological frailty in me. However, I understand that this is not good business, and in recent years the luxury sector has boomed in part because of items that were affordable. The brand became an end in itself, assuming a talismanic significance.