The Cult Of The Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury
Radha Chadha and Paul Husband, Nicholas Brealey, US$23.10
Asia’s love affair with luxury has never ceased to amaze. The region’s glitterati have always had an eye for glamorous brands, but what is startling is the extent to which it is spreading through all echelons of society.
Secretaries toting Burberry bags, junior executives wearing Rolex watches and university students in Ferragamo shoes are what is evident on the streets of Asia’s cities and what is at the heart of the new “luxe-plosion”, where wannabes don’t hesitate to spend whole wage packets on that new bag or pair of shoes.
In fact, the entire luxury brand obsession in Asia is a phenomenon so powerful that Asians now account for half of the world’s US$80 billion luxury brand industry.
These are head-turning times in the booming luxury brand business and for the first time examined by in a new book called The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury by Radha Chadha and Paul Husband.
Co-authored by two internationally known marketing and retail experts, it develops an argument to explain why Asians are snapping up Western luxury brands and offers advice to marketers on what it takes to succeed in the Asian market place.
The book is full of staggering statistics. A total of 94 percent of Tokyo women in their 20s own a Louis Vuitton bag. Hongkong boasts more Gucci and Hermès stores than New York or London. Even India, the new kid on the luxury block, has a three-month waiting list for hot Vuitton items.
Drawing on over 150 interviews, the authors demonstrate how the region’s massive economic and social transformation is dismantling centuries-old ways of defining your place in society, and how your spot on today’s social totem pole is marked by your Chanel suit and your Cartier watch.
A very readable and insightful book that will keep the reading light on long before you expected to turn it off.
David Johnson
