Rational mechanics...

A "BOURGEOISE" CONTRIBUTION OF MINE , IN KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON

Luxury Markets are complicated.
Luxury management is complex.
First: ontologically where does luxury starts , where it ends? How professionally or academically set clear boundaries? Price? Distribution? Product? Brand ? Capacity in Brand leveraging (what a danger..)? Product/market combination? ....Timelessly Brands?

Is not so easy to define the limits: even more complex to teach them .

Face it, "technically speaking" Real Luxury is less and less present.
Old John Lobb's hand made ankle boots took 6 month to be done , for the mere cost in 1983 of 3500 pounds. Plus 500 pounds for the wood trees. Indeed ,if you live not in London, mark your agenda,for there are the 3 necessary fittings.
This is Luxury (note: the salutation line of Lobb's St.James's Str. invoices or correspondence is always the same: "I remain, Sir , your humble servant..." either you are a Mr. Nobody or HRH The Queen....).

Jumping over the Aesthetic and Moral judgment on Luxe vis à the real world, ABSOLUTE Luxury is there and will always be; right on the Tip of the pyramid ; so you'll never find an HERMES pocket agenda for less than 350 Euro its small paper refill priced for more than 50 Euro.
For a Kelly bag in Orange shade there is a waiting list of more 60 month. Tag is 12K euro.

ASPIRATIONAL luxury is where stands Gucci and Lvmh : they have /are/will be experiencing a strong pressure from the Top and from the Bottom : the upper tip of the "Democratic /Affordable Luxury" , they do want to improve their positioning due either by a planned up scaling strat or by a tactic move to tackle to the shrinkage of the buying power of their most natural users cluster .
So name of the game is now getting a chunk of the lower level of the aspirational- now in little trouble- customers , or go down the ladder , though but that will be too perilous for the main assets -the goodwill attached to the brand - furthermore is a just one way street for once you have "too" spoiled your brand no way to take it up again to the previous positioning.
"Luxury" consumption is having a contraction indeed ; but more remarkable will be the skim on the fly- by-night "fake" -mushroomed on the trend- luxury corporations/Brands unable to face the serious situation.
This will ends up in more market shares available at little costs for the Big Camp; Wealthy :they will not only survive but will dramatically increase their size .
De Sole knows it too well: there is a great number of interesting corp. poorly capitalized and managed to shop on the market at rock bottom prices. Yes, the system obeys to the scalability (math) principle. Big will be bigger, small (if not highly niched and highly focused and exclusives) will die or bought up.
And the whole story will start again. As always did ( Dot com teach and the wrong M&A Bonanza thereon in Luxury....)

Main task to achieve : "pass" the bad moment with the lower damages , the fixed costs a big guy has cannot be too much compressed (and for for too long....) for us ads can be considered a fix cost. As well as controlling/expanding distribution via megastores.

(A "bourgeoise" exchange of mine; myself and " that " community in " KNOWLEDGE @ WHARTON")