Luxury Cult

My Michael Jackson Moment

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
Do you remember the time when we fell in love? We were young and innocent then I can still see the moves in my mind’s eye, his slim frame moving in that special Jackson way – tightly controlled, economic, intense – and I’d sit mesmerized, watching the video over and over again. I’d pop that video in at dinner times, and my two little kids – naughty...

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Vogue weighs in on size zero models

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
Fed up with ever tinier sample clothes being sent to her magazine for photo-shoots, the editor of British Vogue , Alexandra Shulman, has sent out a letter to leading fashion designers - Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano among them - stating her concerns. I am hoping this may prove to be a turning point as it is the first time that someone as influential...

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Gucci Group makes "Home" run

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
If Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” was a shrill alarm bell, Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s “Home” is a lilting visual symphony. If Gore uses reason – shocking facts, figures, pictures – to convince us of the desperate state of our planet, the French photographer Arthus-Bertrand seduces you with the sheer beauty of our shared “home”. Stirring, surreal...

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Have Luxury, Need Brands

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
I was at the ISB Hyderabad last week and one of the questions that came up in a chat with students was the feasibility of creating Indian luxury brands that would have the same vigour and appeal of global fat cats like Louis Vuitton, Cartier or Hermes. That’s an area that I have been thinking about more and more as I travel and explore India afresh...

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The ‘Obama Factor’ at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
As a luxury brand author I live in two worlds – the world of luxury and the world of words. For a change I am going to focus on the latter, and take you into the world of books and authors at the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival , which is now in its ninth year. It’s my annual treat – I take a week off, switch tracks, and immerse myself...

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Airline seat for mink coat

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
She walked down the aisle resplendent in a long mink coat, the fur rippling gently like grass in a light breeze. She was a tall, big-boned woman – Ukranian, I learnt along the way – and she squeezed herself in the row behind me. The plane was packed – we were traveling economy – and overhead storage space was severely short, crammed full with bags and...

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Freida Pinto – Global Designs for Globalization’s Child

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
For one brief moment before she stepped on to the red carpet, a little nagging voice at the back of my head asked, would Freida Pinto do a sari for the Oscars? Or would she use her newfound clout to have Valentino or Ellie Saab or her favorite Oscar de la Renta interpret the sari for her Oscar moment? Or would she use the occasion to showcase an Indian...

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Luxury Learnings from Japan's Recession

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
I was invited by the Harvard Business School to speak at their Asia Business Conference 2009 last weekend. I was on the Consumer and Retail panel - along with Ray Hatoyama, the COO of Sanrio which has made Hello Kitty a US$5 billion business globally, and Maria Olives, the AVP of San Miguel Purefoods who flew in from Manila, and Elie Ofek, Marketing...

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Pink Chaddi Campaign – Luxe it Up

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
This blog is dedicated to women doing some frantic last-minute Valentine panty shopping for Mr. Muthalik. (In case you are wondering why, here's the background: The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women – a group formed on Facebook with 34,000 plus members and counting – has launched the Pink Chaddi Campaign , urging women to send Pramod...

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Pubs, malls and “cultural colonization”

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
Every time I see the video of those poor women being bashed up at the pub in Mangalore, I cringe and duck. It plays over and over again on the Indian news channels, and each time I can feel the blows on my body. And then Mr. Muthalik, the politician behind it, gloats and claims victory – his “moral police” are freed from jail and assorted Chief Ministers...

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Economic Downturn to Fashion Upturn: “Shop your closet”

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
I have a confession to make: I am a wardrobe squirrel. Over the years I have squirreled away jeans that are six sizes too small (sold to me by a Greek woman in Sydney, who convinced me that wearing over-tight jeans was the sure shot way to eternal slimness). I have squirreled away a trunk full of south Indian silk saris whose matching blouses don’t...

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The Slumdog Millionaire Route to Luxury

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
I cringed in my chair. I had come to watch a movie which marked a moment of glory for India – it had swept the Golden Globes the night before – and here was an unadulterated tour of India’s shame. It didn’t help either to be sitting in a theatre in Aspen, Colorado – where real dollar millionaires are a dime a dozen – with a small intimate audience of...

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The Luxury of a Home Away From Home

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
It is a fairytale view from my window. I look up to Aspen mountain, massive and majestic, covered copiously in fresh snow from the storm last night. Conical fir trees dot the slopes, their outstretched arms piled up with powder. I can make out the ski slopes curving between the trees, waiting for the onslaught of skiers later in the morning. Closer...

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Can Michelle Obama save the fashion industry?

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
Photo courtesy New York Times Thursday’s New York Times article U.S. Fashion’s One-Woman Bailout? discusses how Mrs. Obama’s stylish-but-grounded dressing (she is as likely to buy from J. Crew and the Gap as she is from Narcisco Rodriguez and Thakoon Panichgul) has the potential to resurrect the faltering fashion industry in the USA. (Luxury sales in...

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And Now… Limited Edition Restaurants

Posted by Radha Chadha at 
If you are a luxury brand marketer, you know the power of those two words: Limited Edition. Say it to a fashionista, and she will whip out her credit card. The simple logic of “Tighten supply, Expand desire” rarely fails to work. I have seen it applied dexterously by almost every major luxury brand – 200 pieces of a special handbag made to coincide...

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