APCOM

Nobody is refused a piece of dream. In any latitude you live, if you can't afford to buy the 'season bag' you will be satisfied with the latest perfume on the market, whose packaging will carry the same easily visible logo. This is the globalization of luxury, which democratizes the access to 'precious goods' and at the same time makes them less exclusive, as they become reachable for a growing number of people. A complex mechanism that Dana Thomas, a cultural and fashion writer for Newsweek in Paris and the Paris correspondent for the Australian Harper's Bazaar, explains in her book "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster".

"There are two different opinions about it," claims the author, who is in Milano to present her work. "It can be the opening of stores to anyone and I think that from a political point of view it is right. For me, this is the democratization, it means a more equal wealth all over the world, not just in the United States or in Europe, but also in China, India, Russia, Brazil. On the other hand, however, there is what I call the banalization of luxury: there are people trying to sell you a logo product everywhere. You are sleeping on the plane crossing the Atlantic and someone wakes you up to sell you a Dior scarf! Leave me alone, you think! Nothing is rare, special and unique, which for me it is what luxury is about."

In spite of this process, luxury is still synonym of dream. "Designers are talking about selling a dream," she adds. "In fact, they show their beautiful clothes on the runways and then they are due to sell lipsticks and perfumes, which allow everybody to buy a piece of that dream, although actually you are buying just a product with the stamp of a logo and making them richer."

In the 19th and 20th centuries, luxury items carried prestige because of their superior craftsmanship and design and only the very privileged could afford them, while nowadays the luxury industry has "sacrificed its integrity" and big groups "have shown off their historical heritage and their craft tradition to give the products an aura of legitimate luxury," as their aim since the beginning was "to make as much money as humanly possible."

According to Thomas, unlike in the past, today luxury brands avoid to be innovative in order not to lose clients and to promote instead a homogeneous image all over the world. The risks of this phenomenon are many. "First of all trying to be anyone else you lose your individuality, the integrity of the brand and your creative voice, because you are trying to sell things to the same people all the time," she said. "Eventually brands start losing their share and there will be some dominant brands doing very well, while smaller ones will shrink and fade away."

In the light of what the book explains, how can we judge the 21st century luxury? "In my opinion there are two different paths luxury is taking," the American journalist points out. "There are the big global groups, the titanic brands like Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton, which are known everywhere. Then you have the little brands that have just one store, or maybe no stores, they just sell in department stores, and they make products in a limited amount, beautifully made, for a small clientele: they are getting back to the roots of luxury, to the finest quality, which is what the other gigantic brand used to do a hundred years ago."

Is there any hope left for this kind of brands and for quality lovers? "I think that now there is a growing awareness in consumers in buying compared with twenty years ago," concludes Thomas. "People are starting to take care, maybe there is a bit of backlash and they are trying to think a bit more locally and are even questioning globalization: they want to know where their clothes are made and how they are made. Luxury is not just buying stuff to accumulate, it is making the right choices and buying something special that suits just you: the person before you could not have bought it and the person after you will not buy it."