Luxury Cult

My Michael Jackson Moment

Radha Chadha — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:18:00 GMT

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, troublesome eaters – would be in a trance while I shoveled food quickly into their mouths. What about us, girl, he’d sing, pointing his finger into the camera. So when the chance came to actually see Jackson in person, I grabbed it.

It was the early 90s. We were young and innocent then. My husband looked after Pepsi marketing, and the Jackson-Pepsi association was at its height. The job at hand was to check out the Michael Jackson show – he was doing a series of concerts in London then – and understand what it would take to get the show to India. So off he flew with me in tow – after all, watching a Jackson concert is the sort of job where an extra pair of ears and eyes could only help.

Magical. That’s the word that comes to my mind. Even after almost two decades gone, I can summon up the feeling of being at Wembley, the raw excitement in the air, the jam-packed stadium, and the whole extravaganza that unfolded in front of my eyes. This was showbiz like I had never seen before – Jackson’s oh-wow performance on the one hand, and the whole impact of cutting-edge production technology on the other – it was sheer magic. (My husband later learned that he’d have to fly in planeload after planeload of equipment for the show into India.)

My enduring memory is Jackson taking off like a rocket at the end of the show. He was there one moment and then the next he was in this space-suit-like thingy and before my eyes he just flew out of the stadium.

Did Jackson agree to come to India? Yes, he did. But the show was cancelled at the last minute, Jackson wasn’t well, dehydration I think. And then all the weird things started, and perhaps he wasn’t all that young and innocent any more…

As I look back on his life – the good, the bad, the downright weird – I wonder what it was about him that made him such a hit, that gave him that Pied-Piper like ability to connect with millions? He was different for sure – his music, as also his pop-dancing style, was way different from anything we had seen before. Enormous talent. Unbounded creativity. Young and innocent. A complete original. Hat ke. Unique. Whacko.

There is a thin line between being different-original-unique and being whacko. In his case – as indeed in the case of umpteen other creative geniuses – the line blurred over time with tragic consequences. Do you remember how it all began, It just seemed like heaven so why did it end, he sang. It may have ended, Michael, but there's no taking away from the huge contribution you made to music and our lives.

Note: Do you have a Michael Jackson Moment? Please share it with us!

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Vogue weighs in on size zero models

Radha Chadha — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:28:00 GMT

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 as Shulman has entered the debate – she has been the editor of Vogue for over two decades, and the fashion industry will find it difficult to ignore her views. You may recall that the whole issue of size-zero models got an airing a couple of years ago, but fashion houses seemed to have carried on as before, or going by Shulman’s experience, even taken in the seams a tad more.

Shulman says sample sizes have now become so small that even super models like Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista would no longer fit into them. The magazine is forced to look for girls with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” to fit into the clothes, and that in turn promotes the super-skinny look, a look that Shulman says is no longer in sync with her readers.

Bravo, Shulman, for taking a healthy stance! The lurking danger in all this, of course, is that women - especially teenagers - try to get the same skinny look, and that can lead to eating disorders. In India, the fashion industry is still at an early stage, and the size zero issue - notwithstanding the flak that Kareena Kapoor got on it - has not had much impact at society at large. But as the industry develops, this is an issue to watch out for. Or go a step further and put up some guardrails: it would be good if the fashion industry as a whole - whether Western brands or Indian brands - and the fashion magazine industry vowed not to show underweight models. Perhaps the Madrid standard of refusing models under a BMI of 18.5 at its fashion shows is a convention the Indian fashion industry could adopt.

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Here’s Shulman's letter as quoted in The Times (UK), June 13 2009, page 16:

"I am writing to you about a subject which is becoming increasingly disturbing, and about which I would really like to know your views.

"During the time I have been at Vogue the sample sizes that models are required to wear have become substantially smaller. We have now reached a point where many of the sample sizes don’t comfortably fit even the established star models. Instead we are having to use girls with jutting bones and no breasts or hips, to fit them. Nowadays, I often ask the photographers to retouch to make the models appear larger.

I am finding that the feedback from my readers and the general feeling in the UK is that people really don’t want to see such thin girls either in editorial or advertising. I am often having t run headshots on the cover, rather than images where you can see clothes, because my readers are uncomfortable with the size of the models when seen full length."

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Gucci Group makes "Home" run

Radha Chadha — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:02:00 GMT

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, sci-fi-ish, its like a series of abstract artworks unfolding, the entire film shot solely from the sky. Is this a new genre of art: Eco-art? And will these stunning eco-scapes of the earth hemorrhaging persuade our over-consuming minds to change?

“Home” premiered all over the world on 5 June, World Environment Day, screened in over 50 countries – I saw it at the French Embassy in New Delhi – as also on YouTube, TV and DVD. All for free.

And that’s where the luxury connection comes in. PPR, the parent company of Gucci Group has sponsored the film. That is very commendable, indeed.

Watch a trailer of "Home" here.

Watch the entire film here. (You may as well get yourself a glass of wine and some popcorn, this is going to take 90 minutes.)

There’s a series of products designed by Gucci Group brands - Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Sergio Rossi (check out the heel of the Eco Pump, it is really cool) Alexander McQueen, Boucheron - to coincide with the event...see a selection on the Wallpaper site.

But the film raises a fundamental question that the luxury industry – and all of us – need to think about. This is a business that functions on the twin logic of seasonal obsolescence and over-consumption - where you are encouraged to discard "last season" products (as any self-respecting fashionista will tell you) in favor of what's in this season. You might have a wardrobe chock-a-block with "stuff" but with each new season you head out to buy "more stuff". So how does an industry that wants you to consume "more" square off with an earth that wants you to consume "less"?

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Have Luxury, Need Brands

Radha Chadha — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:17:00 GMT

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 – after a decade spent abroad – and I am left gasping over and over again at the outstanding level of craftsmanship, and sheer beauty of work across so many categories.

In a nutshell, our problem is: We have the luxury, we don’t have the brands.

Let me hasten to qualify that there is tons of tacky work that won’t make the luxury cut, but what has surprised and delighted me is the large number of examples of superb quality that are scattered in their midst, that have the heritage, the passion, the creativity, the compelling stories – all huge pluses in building luxury brands.

One such example that took my breath away is the work of Shamsuddin, an embroidery artist from Agra. I can’t find the words to describe the effect his work had on me and my husband – we just stood there transfixed, emotionally tongue-tied, and I am not exaggerating when I say we didn’t breathe normally for the next couple of hours. Batty as it sounds, this is embroidery with the power to move the soul.

Shamsuddin created massive artworks with needle and thread – some took him years to complete. He used elements of zardozi – one gorgeous piece is a bouquet of flowers in a vase studded with 20,000 carats of precious and semi-precious stones – but what I found even more exceptional was his unique 3-D thread work and the amazing life-like effect that generates. An embroidered peacock feather could easily be mistaken for a real one.

Shamsuddin is no more, but his masterpieces are housed in a private gallery at the Kohinoor Jewellers store in Agra, and we had the privilege of being taken around by the owner, Ghanshyam Mathur, earlier this month. My favorite: a 99” by 75” rendition of Christ as a shepherd, surrounded by a gaggle of plump woolly sheep – so beautiful it hits you in the heart with the force of a sledgehammer. You marvel too that a Muslim artisan spent eighteen years lovingly creating a picture of Christ – apparently, it came to him in a dream and then he was like a man possessed.

Shamsuddin won several awards, including the Padmashree, in his lifetime. His work is now carried on by his son and his pupils to the best of their ability.

There are few original Shamsuddin works for sale now – Mr. Mathur isn’t parting with any from his personal museum – but I won’t be surprised if some of them surface at a Christie’s auction at a hefty price one day soon.

Can Shamsuddin’s legacy of unique 3-D hand embroidery be leveraged to create an international luxury brand? Can his skills be institutionalized and taught to future generations of artisans, the same as Hermes has done? Can modern design elements be brought to bear that will connect with the global consumer? Can a talented designer be roped in to extend Shams embroidery techniques into an exclusive collection of clothing, bags, shoes? Can Shams (and the hundreds of other “Shams” across the country) be cast as a true blue Indian luxury brand?

I am rooting for a fervent yes. Otherwise we are leaving billions of dollars of wealth creation opportunity on the table. And sentencing our fine Indian craftsmanship to gradual extinction.

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

Radha Chadha — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:43:00 GMT

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 in the simple pleasure of words, and the art and craft of writing them.

The overarching theme that struck me this time was the effortless mixing of cultures and places, a literary globalization if you will, where it seemed perfectly natural to have a Korean-American write about the British in Hong Kong – as Janice Lee did with The Piano Teacher – and a British-Indian write about Bulgaria – as Rana Dasgupta did with Solo. (His first book Tokyo Cancelled would score a ten on any globalization meter, its cast of thirteen stranded airline passengers telling tales from all over the world.) If you were at the festival, you’d think mono-cultural writing was – to borrow a phrase from the luxury world – so last season.

This literary globalization was bound to happen, following in the footsteps of the globalization of trade, of people switching countries, studying abroad, marrying ‘locals’, their children growing up in a hyphenated culture… and in the natural order of things, writing about the interconnected world they now inhabit. I like to think of this as the “Obama Factor” – with his black Kenyan father, white American mother, and a childhood spent in Indonesia and Hawaii, President Barrack Hussein Obama encompasses a Noah’s Ark of cultures, races, religions, geographies, all in one body – and there is a growing number of Obama’s who are coming of age, and writing copiously about their globalized inner selves and outer experiences.

Perhaps the search for identity is felt more keenly in such a situation – it’s like a tough multiple-choice question where you can’t tick A, B, C or D – and it certainly provides fertile ground for writing, as Obama himself demonstrated with his poignant Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

At the festival the Obama Factor was very much in play and there were plenty of tales of race and inheritance. Min Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires – think of it as a Korean version of the Namesake written in a racy Devil Wears Prada style – has the protagonist Casey battling her immigrant working class upbringing with her American Ivy league education, the cutthroat world of investment banking, her addiction to the good things in life – even when she is broke she maxes out her credit card on designer clothes – and her love for a white man that her father won’t look at. Thaddeus Rutkowski’s books – Roughhouse and Tetched (slang for crazy, or “touched” in the head), both finalists for the Asian American Awards – draw from his Polish-Chinese-American childhood. Incidentally, this is his first trip to China, and hopefully helped one more piece of his identity jigsaw fall into place.

Interestingly, Julia Whitty, an environmentalist who explores the underwater world – her latest The Fragile Edge won the Kiriyama Award – is now planning her next book around her mixed identity. She grew up thinking her mother was English, only to discover later that she had been lied to – her mother was Anglo-Indian. A telling example of how times have changed: while her mother sought to bury her multi-cultural roots, her daughter – and indeed her daughter’s generation of authors – seek to explore exactly that.

If these authors navigate between cultures, Margaret Atwood, the highlight of the festival for me, takes the globalization theme to a higher plane – humanity itself and planet earth. She spoke about her latest book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth which is her take on the notion of balance and fairness and who owes what to whom on a global basis, the impending natural disaster we all face together (“If the food runs out, you die”), human greed (“Oil isn’t being produced by gnomes underground”) and her ultimately optimistic view of the future (“The human animal is smart – we made technology that got us to this, we need other technology to get us out”). It is her combination of immense intelligence and simple storytelling that I admire so much.

The Obama Factor is being played out in the luxury world too – just like these authors, luxury brands have increasingly multi-country parents. The French brand Louis Vuitton has an American designer in Marc Jacobs. (One of Vuitton’s most successful collaborations was with the Japanese artist Takahashi Murakami.) The Italian brand Fendi is now owned by the French conglomerate LVMH and has a German designer in Karl Lagerfeld. (He is also is the designer for the French brand Chanel.) Shanghai Tang, a brand born in Hong Kong, is now owned by Richemont, a Swiss company founded by the Rupert family from South Africa.

Whether it is the world of words, or the world of luxury, the tagline is the same: Products of multiple cultures.

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Airline seat for mink coat

Radha Chadha — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:51:00 GMT

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 bulky winter coats. (None mink, I might add, more like Gap puffer with faux fur trimmings at best.) We settled in for the 6-hour flight from Portland to New York.

I guess I pulled the equivalent of the winning number in a lottery – in this sardines-in-a-cabin scenario, the seat next to me remained happily empty. I smiled and stretched my elbows. And that’s when I felt the tap on my shoulder. Could I keep the mink coat on the empty seat? The coat was carefully folded inside out into a large bundle, and there it sat next to me, safely seat-belted for take-off. My maiden flight alongside a mink.

Just as the drinks trolley came out, the flight turned bumpy. I worried for the precious creature (well, okay, amalgamation of several dead ones) next to me, and decided to make space in the overhead bin. I pulled out my own bag and stuffed it under the seat, and picked up the coat to replace it. Stupid move. The Ukranian lady threw a hissy fit – arms flailing, gulping air, she objected strenuously in a language I couldn’t understand. She finally grabbed the coat in a huff, and sat down hugging it protectively in her lap. I offered the seat again for the mink, but she would have none of it. Moral of the story: Better to be hot and bothered under a pile of mink all the way to New York than suffer the ignominy of binning it overhead.

The aircraft, of course, is a fascinating laboratory to observe human behavior, and with the luxury culture spreading rapidly to the masses, you get some piquant scenes onboard that demonstrate just how precious these objects are, and to what lengths people will go to protect them.

Scene 2. This time I am on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to New Delhi, spacious business class cabin, the flight is full of Indians heading home. A breathtakingly beautiful fashionista strolls in and places her breathtakingly beautiful Bottega Veneta bag in the overhead compartment. There is room enough to accommodate several more bags, but our hi-so lady slams the cover shut, and there it lies – slim and flat – in solitary splendor. (Estimated cost of the bag, upwards of US$ 5000.) A harried businesswoman appears in the adjacent seat, opens the same bin, plonks her cheap-and-cheerful no-name handbag on top of the Bottega.

“Get that bag off mine, this minute,” says our fashionista, teeth clenched. No-name handbag lady can’t see what the fuss is about and dares to hold her ground. Silly move. Fashionista switches gear, throws sophistication and good manners out of the window, and goes into Kali-on-rampage mode. Entertaining verbal catfight ensues. No-name loses, moves her bag out. Moral of the story: Better arm yourself with a Birkin, preferably croc/snake, before taking on a Bottega?

Scene 3. My all time favorite luxury-onboard-gone-overboard incident is the Cathay flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo. Unfortunately, I didn’t see it first hand, but its whacky storyline caught the media attention with headlines like “Gucci bag delays flight” and “Armed police called in for Gucci bag”. The facts: Passenger with Gucci bag refuses to stow it in the overhead locker or underneath the seat. Cathay staff insist she does because of safety regulations. Lady refuses steadfastly. Hour long impasse. Captain finally calls armed police to escort lady off the plane. She leaves, clutching Gucci bag, amid clapping from other passengers, relieved the plane can now take off.

Moral of the story: Perhaps airlines need to create storage space designated for luxury brands, and have the airhostesses tissue-wrap the precious items first.

And while they are at it, they may as well tissue-wrap the precious egos too.

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Freida Pinto – Global Designs for Globalization’s Child

Radha Chadha — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:33:00 GMT

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 fashion designer, whether in an Indian dress or a Western one?

Freida, of course, chose John Galliano’s royal blue one-shoulder beaded confection – paired with her 1000-carat smile – and I think she looked absolutely lovely. Would she have looked less lovely in an Indian outfit? With that exquisite face and that dazzler of a smile, she would look gorgeous even in slumrags.

But that’s hardly the point. You are what you wear, and Freida is carefully packaging herself for a global audience. Given the choice between being a Bollywood sweetie (which an Indian outfit/Indian designer would have achieved) or striding the global stage in a Galliano gown, she has wisely plumped for the latter. Freida and her dress are being discussed in the same breath as Kate Winslet’s elegant grey YSL dress, Anne Hathaway’s shimmering Armani Prive gown, Sarah Jessica Parker’s white Dior scoop-em-up number, Marisa Tomei’s elaborate Versace creation. In marketing speak, Freida has “positioned” herself alongside Oscar-worthy actresses and Hollywood fashionistas in one fell swoop.

She is now rubbing her fine-boned shoulders with Hollywood’s best dressed. Only ten lucky ladies make Time.com’s “The Best Oscar Dresses” and Freida is right there with “kudos for going fashion forward with the lace sleeve and electric color of this dress”. (On the flip side, the dress has been criticized by some - the Guardian for example called it boring - but at least she is in good company, the Guardian had similar views about Angelina Jolie's black strapless Ellie Saab. Better to be discussed than ignored.)

Notwithstanding that, her sartorial choices have been applauded by the international fashion police in a big way. Even before the Oscar night, Freida’s glamour gear for the pre-Oscar parties had her picked by Vogue.com's Ten Best Dressed three weeks in a row. She topped the week of 02.02.09 with her the Donna Karan salmon pink gown that she wore to the Producer’s Guild Awards. She made number three the following week with her silver grey Zac Posen dress which she wore to the Director’s Guild of America Awards. And this week she is at number two with her Chanel black dress that she wore to the Elle Style Awards.

Real life seems to be imitating reel life. Slumdog Millionnaire has hit the Oscar jackpot and captured the global imagination, and with it our Mumbai girl - and her designer frocks - have catapulted her on the world stage. I wonder what else "is written"? Will she be clutching a real Oscar in the future?

PS: This is big in the fashion world: Freida's blue gown just got her into fashion bible Vogue's Ten Best Dressed: Special Edition for the Academy Awards. The others in that list: Nicole Kidman, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Beil, Tina Fey, Marion Cotillard, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Penelope Cruz, and Angelina Jolie. Check it out.

And her make up is highlighted in Vogue's Beauty Roundup for the Oscars
Photo courtesy: Vogue.com

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Luxury Learnings from Japan's Recession

Radha Chadha — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:26:00 GMT

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 Professor at Harvard Business School who did a fine job of moderating our discussion on how consumer behavior has evolved in Asia.

It was a broad topic and we covered a lot of fascinating ground - among others, Hello Kitty turning luxury and gracing hot bods in Hollywood with diamond studded pendants at US$50,000 a meow - but the question that seemed particularly pertinent to me in these tough times was what happens to luxury brands in a recession, and more importantly, are there any case studies that we could learn from?

Well, there is just one – Japan, the birth place of Hello Kitty – and thankfully it is both meaty and juicy so there are plenty of learnings we can draw from its so-called “lost decade” spanning from 1992-2002. Here are my thoughts on the subject:

As far as luxury brands are concerned, it was not a lost decade. Japan was already the world’s single largest luxury market in the world by the early 90’s – fuelled by a giddy boom in property and stocks – and the Japanese consumer continues to hold on to her numero uno position almost a couple of decades later. At its peak, the Japanese consumer accounted for 40% of global spending on luxury brands.

Dig deeper and you find that the story is more complex. The overall market for imported luxury brands declined in Japan over the lost decade, but major brands grew vigorously in the same period. Research in the early 2000’s showed that a staggering 94% of Tokyo women in their 20’s owned a Louis Vuitton piece, 92% owned Gucci, 57% owned Prada... you get the picture. (Vuitton became so ubiquitous that Kyojiro Hata, President of LV Japan, remarked in 2001: “Now that we are very big in Japan, there is a risk that people consider us as a Japanese brand.”)

What’s the consumer logic here? In tough times, consumers focus their spending on the big brands that give them the maximum “social return”. Remember, luxury brands are status markers, so the brands that do the best job of marking status are rewarded handsomely in these times. When personal budgets are tighter, the consumer thinking is let me not fritter away money on lesser known brands, let me go for the sure-shot thing that everyone understands.

The brand that embodies “opportunity in a recession” best is Coach. It launched in Japan in the mid-90’s – smack in the middle of the recession – and grew steadily until it was almost eye to eye with the giant, Louis Vuitton. Coach, of course, accomplished that feat by doing many things extremely well on many fronts, but I’d highlight two aspects of its strategy – one, it offered an exciting range of logo products, and it priced itself a notch or two lower that LV. In effect, it offered all the status marking regalia just like Vuitton, at a substantially lower price – that’s an attractive offer at any time, in a recession only that much more.

In a final twist of fate, Japan’s troubled banking industry actually helped the case for luxury brands. In the heydays of the bubble economy, there was no prime retail real estate available for love or money, and luxury brands for the large part had to be content residing in department stores. When the bubble burst, some banks merged, and retail branches with overlapping geographies were shut down, freeing up prime real estate. Many of the luxury brand flagships and free-standing stores, which played a key role in spreading the cult of luxury in Japan, are former Japanese bank branches!

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.

Photo courtesy: left,Chanel store in Ginza, http://flickr.com/photos/panandrao/2569852619/; right, Prada store at Omotesando: http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/pradatokyo/index.htm

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Pink Chaddi Campaign – Luxe it Up

Radha Chadha — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:31:00 GMT

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 Muthalik, the Sri Ram Sene’s chief, pink panties on Valentine’s day. Mr. Muthalik, as you know, has strong views on not only women drinking at pubs, but he is threatening to forcibly marry off couples romancing on Valentine’s Day.)

Now I don’t know what Mr. Muthalik’s views on luxury brands are, but among the thousands of panties that he is likely to receive, I thought some luxury lingerie would add another dimension to the argument.

So here are some luxury websites that you might want to browse while ordering your Valentine gift.

1. Net-a-Porter (a pioneer in online luxury retailing) offers a Exquisite Lingerie collection featuring brands such as La Perla and Stella McCartney.

2. Saks Fifth Avenue always has plenty of designer chaddis online – go to its Intimate Apparel section and check out Dolce & Gabbana or Juicy Couture (perfect for Valentine – you get a set of three bikinis with heart prints in a heart-shaped box).

3. Victoria’s Secret has a helpful “Panty Bar” where you can choose from very wide selection.

4. Agent Provocateur lives up to its name.

Happy shopping, girls, and if the price tags of these sweet-nothings seem astronomical, here’s a suggestion: Just send him a printout of your favorite pink panty. It’s guaranteed to do the job just as well as the real thing.

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Pubs, malls and “cultural colonization”

Radha Chadha — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:10:00 GMT

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 have supported his stance. And that’s the part I just can’t get – how can beating up anyone, man or woman, be right? In a civilized democracy we debate issues, don’t we, not punch up random women at will?

The issue at stake is that women drinking at a pub somehow soils the pristine "Indian culture", and this imposition of “foreign culture” should be stopped promptly, apparently for the good of the women themselves. And in the midst of this hullaballo, other aspects of foreign culture are being aired and condemned: example, the Haryana Chief Minister thinks pubbing and malling are of a kind, and holding hands at the mall is another crime against Indian culture.

Which brings me to a question that I am often asked about luxury brands in the broader Asian context: Isn’t the wide adoption of Western luxury brands in Asia a form of “cultural colonization” of the mind? And my answer to that is two single syllable words: an emphatic “Yes” and a quizzical “So?”

Japan isn’t in kimonos anymore. China isn’t in cheongsams. (It isn’t in Mao suits either, the culturally appropriate dress until the 80’s.) South Korean women aren’t in hanboks (except in its extremely popular TV soaps). Everywhere in Asia, people have willingly doffed their traditional garbs and donned Western clothing. And while they are at it, they have added a generous sprinkling of Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags and Hermes scarves. (The list, of course, is broader, encompassing complete lifestyles, so add on Mercedes and Ferrari, Moet Chandon and Chivas Regal (ah, that Indian staple)…)

And what are Louis Vuitton bags, proudly going on for a century and a half, if not a piece of French culture? (In fact, a French court ruled that Louis Vuitton’s Paris flagship store could stay open on Sundays as it promotes French culture.) And what are Hermes scarves – as also their beautifully handcrafted leather goods – with an undisturbed lineage of a couple of centuries, if not another piece of French tradition? And what are Rolex watches, with a century worth of expertise, if not a demonstration of Swiss craftsmanship? They are the Western equivalent of Benarasi saris, Kolhapuri chappals, Kashmiri shawls, and kundan and polki jewelery. The only difference is that while our traditional crafts have remained in India with limited reach, low prices, and many in real danger of dying out as an art form, the Europeans have converted their traditional crafts into global luxury brands commanding jaw-dropping prices that people queue up to pay. The families that own them have in the meantime become billion-dollar global conglomerates.

Is this “cultural colonization” of the mind a bad thing? Or in other words, is going to a pub in Mangalore and sipping “Indian made foreign liquor” a culture crime? Without getting into the arguments of freedom of choice and equality of opportunity (there is a bizarre suggestion that while Indian men can head off to the nearest madiralay, Indian women should be barred from pubs), I support the simple logic of pleasure – the pursuit of happiness, if you will – of enjoying a glass of wine with friends in an amiable setting.

And so it extends to luxury brands. In this new flat world, who is to say what pleasures are allowed and what forbidden – the pleasure of a fine silk kurta is permissible, but the pleasure of an exquisitely tailored Canali jacket is not? The pleasure of a baby-soft embroidered pashmina shawl is okay, but a butter-soft Bottega Veneta bag is not?

Does adopting an international dress code equal abandoning your own culture? Take the Japanese: they may be dressed in Western clothes – and be the world’s largest consumers of Western luxury brands - but they remain quintessentially Japanese – food, drink, language, values, systems. What’s more, they export their culture very successfully – try getting a table at Nobu anywhere in the world to get a taste of Japan’s soft power.

And that’s the huge opportunity staring India in the face: to do some “cultural colonization” of our own. Heritage, which we have got in heaps, is a crucial element of luxury brands. Every Banarasi sari, every embroidered pashmina shawl, every kundan earring is a luxury brand waiting to be created for a global market. It ain’t easy – it demands flawless quality, a keen understanding of global consumer needs, and above all, extremely savvy marketing – aspects that we still have to learn to excel at.

But it would be a much more productive pursuit than bashing up women.

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Economic Downturn to Fashion Upturn: “Shop your closet”

Radha Chadha — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:52:00 GMT

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 have a hope in hell of fitting me unless I lose ten kilos (which is just as well as I am told that South silks are so last century that even Hema Malini has moved on from them). I have squirreled away black suits in assorted sizes, brands and styles (acquired over the decade we spent in Hong Kong – not sure why, but black is the only ‘color’ you wear in Hong Kong) which go from Anne Klein (relatively “cheap cheap”, another HK term) to Giorgio Armani (wish it was "cheap cheap") and tell the history of a woman who needs to exercise something other than her credit card.

The good news in all this is that a well-squirreled wardrobe is suddenly in fashion in these economically dodgy times. “Shop your closet” is a term that has been increasingly ping-ing on my radar screen – it refers to the act of foraging through your (hopefully extensive) wardrobe and finding forgotten goodies which you seemingly purchase in a cashless transaction with yourself, and then wear with great effect. As the economic screws tighten and fashionistas become recessionistas, shopping your closet is turning into something of a “best practice” tool.

There is even a book by the name – Shop Your Closet by Melanie Fascitelli – which is a treatise on how to organize your wardrobe as meticulously as the clothing floor at Saks, complete with ten commandments of hanging (the clothes, not the fashionistas) like “Thou shalt color code” and “Thou shalt not hang your clothes with strangers (shirts with shirts, skirts with skirts, etc.)”. While the book is just about the art (and possibly science) of tidying up your wardrobe – she doesn’t actually mention the economic downturn – the term has acquired a whole new meaning with the US going into recession.

Of course, shopping your closet may keep the squirrels looking chic (even if a tad last season), but its effects on luxury retailers is hardly going to be pretty. Their business model is based on the what-me-worry, lets-look-gorgeous spending pattern of the Sex and the City quartet, not the shop-in-your-closet thrift and prudence of the Little Women foursome. For the sake of the luxury industry – and all of us who need some out-of-the-closet retail therapy – lets hope the good times roll soon.

And we can go back to untidy wardrobes.

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The Slumdog Millionaire Route to Luxury

Radha Chadha — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:33:00 GMT

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 a hundred odd mostly Americans.

But here’s the surprise. The audience burst into spontaneous applause at the end of the movie – people clapped spellbound as the lights came on. The bunch in the elevator going out discussed the movie in extremely positive terms, and one of them claimed it was the best movie she had seen ever. And as we headed home in the crisp winter night we heard the gushing praise of two strapping young men walking ahead of us – Frida was their new hot babe, they commented on her beauty, her age, and how she had grown up in Mumbai. They had done their research.

So what is it about Slumdog Millionaire that has the world in raptures? If all movies are placed broadly on a spectrum of artsy to masala, this one’s unabashedly on the masala end. It is very well made, the cinematic equivalent of a page-turner - it grabs you with the opening shot and you only resurface when it ends. But if you have been raised on a constant dose of Bollywood films, you have to wonder if this is serious Golden Globe and Oscar material? Why then, so is Om Shanti Om and umpteen other tautly strung pot boilers.

And that’s exactly the point. What is ordinary for us is extraordinary for the world. This audience is more familiar with the pock-marked lunar landscape than they are with the ins and outs of the slum maze of Dharavi, and it holds far more fascination than the moon (so last century). The mesmerizing soft power of Bollywood which has kept a billion Indians enthralled for decades is touching the rest of the world (in a forceful manner) for the first time with Slumdog – the movie is in English, made by an Englishman, but its cinematic logic is pure Bollywood. While Monsoon Wedding and Bend it Like Beckham and The Namesake did their bit to stir global audiences, unlike them Slumdog is the first full frontal masala assault with not even a wink to artsy-dom.

Which brings me back to my cringing at the no-escape poverty tourism and the twisted fate of two orphans preyed upon by every clichéd evil in the book – maimed for begging, forced underage prostitution, Hindu-Muslim riots, to name just a few. I have asked myself a dozen times: does the movie really show India in a bad light? Why cringe at what is essentially the truth for the vast majority of India? And the more I think about it, the more I realize that what makes me cringe is not so much the spotlight on India’s misery, but Danny Boyle shattering my unconscious Teflon coat to India’s misery, and putting it on display in an unlikely smorgasbord for all the world to see.

But simultaneously what he puts out there for all to see is how the indomitable spirit of India is built, chiseled by poverty and subjugation. If Jamal can go from slumdog to millionaire – and do it with grace and integrity in the midst of every conceivable human depravity – then this is the spirit of a nation to admire.

And in case you are wondering where on earth is the connection to luxury in all this, let me explain. In my book, I argue that poverty and subjugation, and the indomitable spirit that comes with it, are the essential first steps in the spread of the cult of luxury – they build a dream, a desire for the good things for life, a voracious hunger to make good that has to be fed at the first flush of money.

Just ask any newly moneyed Russian, Chinese or Indian.

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The Luxury of a Home Away From Home

Radha Chadha — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:52:00 GMT

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 up are the red brick buildings of the St. Regis Residence Club that catch the early morning sun, and smack outside my window – if I leaned out I could touch them – are the bare twiggy tree branches wired up neatly in white ice.

I sip my tea. White, serene, crisp, magical, it’s a scene I associate only with Christmas cards – a million worlds away from the smog-laden winter chaos of Gurgaon mornings, my home now, or the urban hustle-bustle of Hong Kong, my home for the last decade – and yet the funny part is I feel so much at home here. I didn’t expect to – I am a warm weather girl really – and am surprised and delighted by this overwhelming sense of “home”.

Which brings me to the question of what is home really, especially in a flat world marked by transience and families spread all over the map? How can one be at home in alien settings and alien cultures? And since this is a blog on luxury, what ingredients go into transforming what is essentially a “borrowed space” – from a fractional ownership plan in our case here – into a warm instant home away from home?

Top of that list in creating this “illusion of home” has to be an organization of space and objects that you can intuitively navigate – quite like a well-designed website where you instinctively know where is what. Everything feels familiar. It is only our third visit here, but it feels like I have spent a lifetime. There is comfort in knowing exactly which drawer has the cutlery, and where the washing machine is and the microwave. I put the kettle on for tea and wait for its familiar whistle. Of course, it helps that everything is so comfortable and of impeccable quality – the sheets are super soft, the bathtub gurgles up into a jacuzzi, the bathroom floor is heated. And if there is anything I need, it is genuinely a phone call away, the answer is always an enthusiastic “yes, absolutely”.

The décor – American country, dark wood, leather, stone fireplace - is at once luxurious and homey, spacious and cozy. Things don’t match, rather it is how you and I would have “built up” a home over time, adding one piece of furniture after another. The ceilings are low, creating a sense of intimacy. Open plan, shared spaces, everything is “human scale”, helping a family to bond.

And family is definitely what home is about. Just being together as a family is a big deal – rare enough with the four of us whizzing along on separate schedules in separate parts of the world – as are the special memories we have built jointly in Aspen. The early mornings spent at the kitchen counter with adrak chai and Weetabix, layering up for the day of skiing ahead, back “home” for a simple meal of pasta cooked together, huddled up in bed watching a movie, or crowded around the dining table with our laptops. It is where my son learned to iron his first shirt. It is where I snapped my ACL and went for umpteen rounds of physiotherapy. It is where my husband organized a company conference in far-off Phuket by remote control. It is where my daughter is experimenting with her first few paintings in oil.

Equally, it is the people and places that we have built relationships with. Jodie, the ski instructor we loved so much we followed her all the way to Aspen. Snowmass, the mountain, where the family has skied the most. Aspen Sports where we hire our gear. Mezzaluna and Rustique and Kenichi and Ajax Tavern and Explorer and the dozens of other restaurants and bars where we have spent memorable evenings. (The food is outstanding in almost every restaurant in Aspen.) The Little Nell for après ski and some unintended people watching – it easily has the highest per capita usage of fur coats that I have seen anywhere. The City Supermarket. Carl’s Pharmacy. The bus stop. The ski lift. The airport. Everywhere we go there is this consistently high level of service and warmth. It is a city that understands hospitality well.

Grant McCracken, the anthropologist best known for his ideas on how we transfer cultural meaning into objects – I enjoy his work, and refer to it in my book – has studied the notion of “homeyness” and what helps create it. He examines eight symbolic properties – diminutive, variable, embracing, engaging, among others - and how they contribute to a sense of homeyness. As we in India embark on our high-end apartment building phase, developers would do well to study his recommendations. It isn’t just flash and large size – although we know only too well the Indian penchant for linking size with status – but also its “homeyness” quality. That is the ultimate luxury.

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Can Michelle Obama save the fashion industry?

Radha Chadha — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:55:00 GMT

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 the USA have fallen steadily - JP Morgan, quoting MasterCard, reported that sales declined by 5% in Sept 08, 20% in Oct 08, 24% in Nov 08, and 28% in Dec 08. High end department stores in the USA reflect that trend - same-store sales in December were down 27.5% at Neiman Marcus, down 20% at Saks.)

Can one woman’s sense of style have so much impact?

That the fashion business relies on the likes of you and me copying what the celebrities are wearing is a hard fact… that’s how trends spread, that’s how something becomes “in fashion”. But it is only once in a very long time that a woman of such iconic status comes along that every stitch she wears has the power to influence the masses. Some first ladies have it and some don’t. Jacqueline Kennedy was an all time great and the way she worked with designers on both sides of the Atlantic had a momentous impact on global fashion. On the other hand, Laura Bush’s well-dressed-but-matronly look or Hillary Clinton’s tailored pantsuits have at best a niche appeal. Across in France, Carla Bruni has an effortless glamour, as did the earlier Mrs. Sarkozy. Princess Diana was a compelling visual delight. Indira Gandhi was a bold fashion leader, her gorgeous sari’s, that championed indigenous craft, had a long-lasting impact – check out what Indian women in power wear today, whether it is her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi in the political arena or the likes of Naina Lal Kidwai in the corporate one, the style influence of the original Mrs. Gandhi is palpable.

Coming back to Michelle Obama… can she be the next Jackie O for the fashion industry? In my view, yes and even more, in that her appeal is wider and multi-segmented – she is a well-qualified professional, a successful working woman, a mother of young children, and a celebrity at the same time.

Importantly, she doesn’t have Jackie’s made-for-fashion slim frame. She has meat on the bones, a commanding body that is more Beyoncé-bootylicious than Diana-wispy. So she has the power to take fashion from the narrow confines of the size zero's and size two's which is its mainstay today and make it accessible to the average-built everywoman.

What’s more, she mixes expensive labels with the not-so-expensive ones – she wore Narcisco Rodriguez for the election night, but J. Crew on the campaign trail – and manages to look stylish in both. So, she has the power to impact not just the high-end designer brands but also give a fillip to the broader fashion industry.

Even before her husband was elected President, Mrs. Obama was already making it into best-dressed lists, topping Vanity Fair’s list in July 2008. Now, as her husband steps on the world stage as the most powerful man on earth, she, and her clothes, will have the camera clicks and TV eyeballs of the world. That will be worth billions of dollars worth of advertising for the fashion industry…a factor that can only help the fashion business in the USA, and indeed, the whole world.

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And Now… Limited Edition Restaurants

Radha Chadha — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:30:00 GMT

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 with a new store launch, or just 100 watches designed by so-and-so to mark the brand’s 100th anniversary, or a numbered range of just 1000 bottles of a rare 60-year-old whisky – but it was my first visit to a limited edition restaurant.

We dined at Flash this weekend in London…it is a temporary restaurant set up in the Royal Academy of Arts for just 80 days, and will serve its last meal on 18 January. Temporary it might be in concept, but there is nothing make-shift about its offering – it has gone the whole nine yards and more to put together a memorable experience. And this limited edition is playing to script – it was packed full, helped by the rave reviews it has been getting from the likes of New York Times and London Times.

The setting itself is quite something. It feels like a large interactive art installation where your presence – and that of other diners – makes it come alive. The restaurant’s space is marked out by wooden packing crates, stacked ceiling high – it cues temporary for sure, but also very con-temporary, and needless to say, very look-at-me, very hip-and-happening. We sat under a weird-and-wonderful chandelier, a multi-spiked Swarovski-encrusted jagged star in Christmas-y green. There were specially commissioned artworks adorning the crate-walls. The crockery was made just for Flash by Wedgewood – absolutely funky gorgeous stuff designed by illustrator Will Broome – with cheeky lines like “if you don’t eat your greens, no pudding for you”. It is the only time in my life that I have seriously lusted after a teapot, that, aside from being used for serving tea, also happened to be the prize for winning the full house in a game of Bingo.

Yes, Bingo. A drag queen suddenly appeared mid-dinner and handed out Bingo tickets – Jonny Woo, quite an act, statuesque, slim, white curls, a day-after shadow, multi-colored stockings, 6-inch killer heels and 2-inch eyelashes – and the whole restaurant paused from their collective dinners to play a game of Bingo.

The food was surprisingly good too – Flash is run by the (permanent) restaurant Bistrotheque – with some delicious options for a vegetarian like me.

This is one limited edition act that I wish had lasted longer…at least long enough to give me a second chance to win that odd-ball Will-Broome-designed, specially-for-Flash-which-won’t-exist-after-19-January-2009, made-by-Wedgewood-in-its-250th-anniversary-year teapot.

Photo courtesy New York Times

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