Nearly two years ago I wrote about the increasing likelihood of a geopolitical shift disrupting the upward growth curve of the luxury industry. At the time, I believed the geopolitics of luxury was closer to becoming a top of mind issue than ever before. The carnage and bloodshed in Ukraine has sadly proven this to …
It might seem premature to float the idea of “big luxury”. After all, luxury and technology are two vastly different industries. And why worry about big luxury when we are still in the early days of dealing with big tech? But it is well worth investigating since both industries share one key feature – both …
Big luxury – is the luxury industry becoming the next big tech? Read More »
The age of globalization has been an enviable growth engine for the luxury industry spearheaded by Western luxury giants like LVMH, Richemont and Kering. The last 20 years have been a story of steady growth with low risk and few obstacles to global expansion. But what are luxury’s prospects in the face of a shifting …
The geopolitics of luxury and end of low-risk globalization Read More »
That retailing is being disrupted has become painfully obvious in the last couple of years. In 2017, the phrase “retail apocalypse” was coined to describe legacy retailers closing thousands of stores in the US. This has been usually attributed to the two-pronged attack by Amazon on price and convenience. Other reasons include excessive debt held …
Retail apocalypse or renaissance? The battle for two kinds of retail mastery Read More »
Right after Apple decided to no longer report unit sales going forward last Friday, investors and analysts have pummeled AAPL by downgrading and selling off the stock. So is this reporting change innocuous or is it sign of troubling times ahead? In the words of one analyst, this reporting change at least creates the appearance that …
Downgrade Apple? Why Wall Street is missing the boat on AAPL Read More »
“Italians work a lot on product and in France, you work a lot on the marketing of product. If you integrate the two, I think you can have a great story and that’s what I was doing [at menswear brand Berluti] and what I’m doing [at Zegna].” – Alessandro Sartori, Artistic Director, Zegna (WWD, April …
Digital connoisseurs and the challenge for menswear brands Read More »
This week’s Economist highlights the EU’s plan to build a “Malmo-Palermo express” linking the north and south. The funding of a “Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor” is quite substantial. The reason for this investment is that the southern reaches of Europe around the Mediterranean have lagged on most economic measures behind the rest of western Europe for decades. …
Rarity and connectivity – the case of Sicilian tailoring Read More »
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