the east wind prevails over the west wind
Burberry, which is famous for its plaid pattern, is a fashion brand from Britain. Its flagship store in London used to be located in Regent Street, a fashionable shopping street with many famous British shops, but now it has moved to Bond Street, a relatively secluded but famous street not far away. This street stretches for hundreds of meters, with world-class brand stores on both sides. Like other shops on the street, most customers in Burberry's shop can speak Japanese, Cantonese, Taiwan Province Mandarin and more and more Mandarin, so that the store has to hire shop assistants from Japan and China.
It is only half right to say that these swarming Asian customers are just buying souvenirs from European tours. Burberry's London factory is located here in Hackney, a slum. There is a big factory store in the factory, which sells all BURBERRY products from socks to windbreakers, from umbrellas to bags. Because it is a factory store, the price of goods is much lower than the market price, but the packaging is rough, the layout is chaotic, and there is a dusty pile, which looks like a stall. Customers go shopping like shopping in a supermarket, with plastic baskets in their hands and satisfied smiles on their faces.
Interestingly, the customers of this store, which is only known by local people, are still mainly young Asian women who have lived in London for a long time, and there are few British locals.
In fact, in France, Italy, Britain, the United States and other areas where fashion brands are concentrated, Asians are the main force.
LV is a brand that is warmly sought after in Asia. There is a LV flagship store next to the Champs Elysé es in Paris. 90% of the guests are Asians, especially young women in East Asia. There are so many receptionists who are in charge of calling. This store even requires guests to show their passports, and the number of each person is limited. Japanese and China guests usually buy handbags, wallets and other small leather goods, while the wives of Middle Eastern oil tycoons buy large suitcases. Tens of thousands of francs a suitcase is three or four or more from big to small, and the purchase restriction policy seems to be ineffective for them.
Although the clerk is polite, it is often behind the French disdain for Asians who are so crazy about buying luxury goods.
The reporter once had dinner with some friends from Hong Kong and Britain. Because it is AA system, everyone took out their wallets after dinner. When three Hong Kong people took out their LV wallets at the same time, all the British people exclaimed during the dinner. It never occurred to them that every woman in Hong Kong has something as expensive as wearing a uniform. Are they sick?
It's all vanity.
The income of westerners is generally higher, and the middle class earns three or five thousand pounds a month. It is not difficult to spend a few hundred dollars and a thousand dollars on a luxury item. But in China, people's income is low, but because of tariffs and other reasons, commodity prices are much more expensive than those in Europe and America. Ten thousand yuan is definitely a high income. People in this income class are most sensitive to fashion, but ten thousand yuan is not enough to buy a Hermes handbag without eating or drinking. For many westerners, they can buy themselves a famous brand every month as long as they want. For most famous fans in China, if you want to buy a famous brand, you have to be careful for several months to realize your dream.
DTC Diamond Consulting Center is an international organization responsible for diamond promotion. Ms Chen Xuemei, the manager, has been selling diamond jewelry in China for many years. When explaining that Asians are keen on luxury consumption, she said frankly, "More or less out of vanity. The domestic people's economic strength has increased, and they have the ability to spend money and satisfy vanity. In addition, some luxury goods, such as diamonds, have the function of preserving value, which is also the consumption psychology of Chinese people. But the vanity of Asians is indeed stronger than that of Europeans and Americans. "
Relatively speaking, westerners consume famous brands at an older age, with a higher status and more types, while orientals are younger, with a lower status and fewer types.
In the west, most people with many top luxury goods are over 30 years old, with successful careers, rich income, well-informed, mature external image, self-confidence and elegance, and personal temperament and the gorgeous appearance of luxury goods complement each other. Lisa is the curator of a museum in London and a big fan of Fendi. She insists that luxury brands like Fendi can only be worn by people over 30. Besides buying fashion, she also likes all kinds of famous brand porcelain, such as WEDGEWOOD and RORALDOULTON. Lisa once proudly said that although she has many brand-name clothes, it is only a small part compared with her collection of famous household items such as porcelain and tablecloths. And those household items are what she really likes. She likes to rub these delicate things in afternoon tea. Linda is a painter in China who married an English businessman a few years ago. Her husband is very generous, buying her his own Porsche sports car and Mercedes-Benz sports car, but not letting her buy top brand clothes. Her husband earnestly educated her: "In England, when you look at a person's money, first ask him where he lives, then look at what car he drives, and never look at what he wears." It turns out that Europeans and Americans are not without vanity, just looking at where they are used. In her husband's view, it is frivolous for a person to show off around in a famous brand without a house or a car.
In China, it is often young girls who enjoy top brands. Many people scrimp and save for a month or two and spend thousands of dollars on a brand-name bag or sunglasses. If the financial resources are really insufficient, buy a fake one and make yourself happy. Ms. Z, the representative of a Fortune 500 American company in Beijing, was surprised to find that although her salary is the sum of all the people in the office, since a girl bought a brand-name bag, almost all the young girls have carried brand-name handbags, which is very rare in the United States, but she used an ordinary bag herself. Fortunately, her executive suit is the most advanced, which keeps her feeling of authority. "Those girls' clothes are cheaper, and at most they are domestic famous brands, but those bags really add color to them. "But Ms Z didn't intend to buy such a bag. She thinks it's too worthless.
It is vanity that explains why brands like LV are popular in Asia. At present, "assisted communication" is popular among Japanese girls, that is, girls have sex with adult men, and men buy luxury goods for them in return. Lu, who has received this kind of "assistance", said: This is a noble family and the exclusive pet of Queen Napoleon. It is the top luggage brand in the world, and no one can beat it. It's not on sale like most luxury goods. It also has a LOGO printed on it, which can be recognized at a glance. Vanity swelled to a painful level. Inside and outside the wall of Fu Gui Township
At least domestic famous brand stores are like this: concentrated in a five-star hotel or the most advanced department store in this city. There are Wang Fu Hotel and International Trade Mall in Beijing, Meimei Department Store and Jinjiang Sheng Di Department Store in Shanghai, Minshan Hotel in Chengdu and Seibu Department Store in Shenzhen. This form of building stores in luxury buildings and a series of tight walls make these boutiques more distinguished because of heavy defense, which seems to be insufficient to show the status of famous brands.
Wang Fu Hotel has more than 50 top brands, occupying three floors above ground and underground. It is one of the hotels with the most luxury brands in China. Famous brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Armani, Cartier and Hermes occupy a prominent position in the lobby on the first floor, and some have doormen (it is said to be an international practice), which is very strict. In addition, the opening hours of the specialty stores in Wang Fu Hotel are later and earlier than those in other shopping malls. This is a reservation.
Western luxury consumption has no domestic security, just as high-level communities and universities abroad have no walls. Large fashion capitals, such as new york, London, Paris and Milan, all have special boutique streets. For example, there is Bond Street in London, Fifth Avenue in new york and Van Dom Square in Paris. These streets are hundreds of meters long and there are a row of ranked brand shops. The reason why the storefront becomes bigger is that it is free from the shackles of shopping malls and hotels, usually two or three-story buildings, which makes the placement of goods and the decoration of the storefront achieve the best effect, and has enough area for window display, which can directly and concisely express the brand image. In particular, these streets often have a long history of hundreds of years and are the traditional consumption areas of the rich, so they have a profound historical and cultural accumulation. Although this kind of boutique does not conform to the trend of luxury hotels, it still has its own atmosphere.
In addition to the special boutique street, there are many high-end department stores, which are also places where brands gather. Take London as an example. There are three large department stores, namely Searle Foric, Harvey Nicoles and Harold. Although these shopping malls are huge in area and beautifully decorated, there are too many goods to build a shop in a shop. No matter how famous the brands are, they are all crowded side by side. Especially those brand-name clothes, such as Dzheniya and Armani, have always been the king of the palace in China, but in foreign department stores, they can only be hung into strings by clotheslines, leaving customers to pick and choose. Just like we pick those staple foods in domestic shopping malls, there is no sense of nobility.
Shopping in high-end department stores is completely different from shopping in specialty stores. In the specialty store, it seems that there are more salespeople than customers, and the clerk is polite and thoughtful, just like waiting on the prince and princess. I can't wait for you to try on all the clothes upstairs and downstairs. The purpose is nothing more than to let you buy things. But anyway, it's good to be treated like this in a pleasant environment. The crux of the matter is that when you step into the store, you must have a good psychological endurance and be able to bear the faint contempt of the clerk when he knows that you don't want or can't afford those things at all.
In department stores, it's different. There are not so many salespeople around the endless stream of customers, so they can be free and try not to buy addiction. Moreover, it is very refreshing to see clothes that have squeezed customers' wallets and are hastily piled up. This is why people are willing to go to department stores to buy things. Unfortunately, there is no such shopping environment in China. Why is the brand moon round?
People who know the way of famous brands go beyond the stage of discussing things, and will look at the relationship between celebrities and famous brands, the economic background, the good and evil of human nature, the different manifestations of lifestyle, and identify with the cultural connotation of famous brands.
At present, most luxury goods in the world are rooted in the cultural soil of Europe and America. Due to the unique historical and cultural background, Europeans and Americans often have a deeper understanding of famous brands than orientals. They have a clear understanding of the origin, spiritual essence and style of famous brands. However, it is difficult for domestic people to know the details of western culture like the palm of their hand, and because of historical and cultural reasons, even if many people do it, it is difficult to feel the same, and it is impossible to understand why the moon of luxury goods is so round.
For example, Chanel has a famous skirt. When President Kennedy was assassinated, she threw herself into the arms of his wife Jacqueline, who was wearing a pink Chanel dress. The profound impact of Kennedy's assassination on American society and Jacqueline's appeal in European and American fashion circles are unfamiliar to China people, which is not conducive to domestic fashion fans to understand Chanel in depth.
For another example, CD's NEWLOOK series uses tens of meters of high-grade fabrics with retro style, and strives to create an elegant, gorgeous, noble and sexy female image. This may be understandable in other times, but it was born in 1947, which was extremely poor in material resources after World War II. At that time, France had no food, no coal for heating, no clothes and cloth, and more importantly, people had no hope in their hearts. Dior, the designer of NEWLOOK, is trying to ignite people's hope through his beautiful image. People's sleeping dreams were awakened, they took off their dull and worn-out clothes during the war and bought the cheapest cloth to imitate NEWLOOK. The gorgeous clothes all over the street drove away the dark clouds and ushered in spring. At that time, the government was helpless in the face of the frustrated French who went on strike everywhere, but the CD made the French regain their old dreams and hold their heads high. However, domestic famous brand fans seem to be more interested in how the style of CD changed from a lady to a lady because of the participation of designer Gariano, but little is known about how NEWLOOK formed the style of CD.
It is the lack of basic understanding of famous brands that makes some ridiculous things happen. A famous brand handbag with the concept of noble lady commissioned a survey of its consumers in China. In this way, most consumers are "ladies". Rolex watches have also become a symbol of big money in China. In fact, it is the favorite of many foreign artists.
In addition to natural cultural communication, people abroad have far more practical experience than at home. Even department stores in slums have special counters to sell all kinds of ornaments. In Britain alone, there are several large chain stores specializing in accessories, such as CLAIRE, ACCESSORY and TIERACK, which are as dense as McDonald's and KFC in Beijing. The accessories inside can be used from two or three-year-old children to the elderly. It is this exquisite and elegant lifestyle that makes westerners receive exquisite care in all aspects of daily life. This is not only the embodiment of high economic level and cultural literacy, but also the soil for the emergence and development of luxury goods.
In China, however, the life style is relatively rough, and it is prone to "petty bourgeoisie" families, which has also been ridiculed and criticized by people. Fortunately, more and more people begin to pay attention to the taste of life and know how to have different accessories on different occasions. Miss Chen Xuemei said, "You can't wear the same clothes and jewelry every time you go to a party, so you have to borrow it from a jeweler."
Becoming a celebrity is also an important way of traditional famous brand culture. There are a number of celebrity gossip magazines abroad, such as OK and HELLO, which introduce the lifestyles of celebrities from all walks of life and have a great influence on citizens' lives. "Hello, OK" introduces in detail the fashion star Spice Girl Victoria bought thousands of pounds of clothes in Bond Street one day, what kind of big gift package she gave her youngest son for his first birthday, and the layout of her mansion worth tens of millions of pounds in Hertford countryside. Once, because she said that she liked the brand GUCCI, fashionable men and women all over Britain rushed into GUCCI's store, which almost caused out of stock. Hollywood star Michael? Douglas and Zeta? When Jones got married, the groom ordered 654.38 million+pounds of caviar in Selma Foric. As soon as these magazines were published, the sales of those extremely expensive things immediately picked up. Some time ago, there was a Qu Meifeng in Taiwan Province Province. She wore a Burberry trench coat during a trial, and everyone went to sweep the goods after watching the TV broadcast. The stars inadvertently acted as the image ambassadors of the brand.
In contrast, domestic efforts in this regard are far from enough. At the Golden Rooster Awards Ceremony every year, the stars who take the stage to receive the award are all casual clothes, so it is better to have a private party. Gong Li's recent appearance at the awards ceremony drew criticism for her casual clothes. Moreover, some stars also boast in the media that they can buy fakes and match the true and false. Domestic fashion circles have the obligation to spread brand culture to the public, and for the brand itself, this effect is often better than dry goods advertising.
Although there are various gaps, the domestic consumption level of luxury goods has become higher and higher. A large number of fashion consumer media are doing enlightenment literacy work. Most importantly, with the strengthening of economic strength, people's lives are becoming more and more refined, and their attitude towards luxury goods is becoming more and more "supercilious". For example, diamonds, many people have changed from emphasizing the size and grade of gems to emphasizing the overall beauty of jewelry, and luxury goods have begun to serve people instead of blindly following them. This is the high level of luxury consumption.