Paris- The luxury capital of the world
It was exhilarating to sit and watch beautifully coiffured women stroll the boulevards around the Musee du Louvre, their heels clicking, ostrich leather totes clasped on their arms. Paris is truly the very essence of luxury. It combines history, traditional craftsmanship and contemporary design across haute couture, wines, crystal, porcelain, gastronomy and perfume in a potent cocktail.
Why is it that Paris and France house the world’s most luxurious brands? After all, whether you’ve put on your Herme scarf, packed a Louis Vuitton suitcase, rubbed a little Shalimar on your wrists, accessorized a Dior silk dress with a Cartier necklace or sipped on some Veuve Clicquot, you’ve patronized a French luxury brand.
Anuradha Mahindra, editor and publisher of Verve magazine says, “Since Louis XIV’s court, France set the yardstick for fashion. Haute couture today is a confirmation of that supremacy. The city’s well-preserved beauty adds to its charm and luxury, where better than the city’s stately old buildings and museums to showcase high quality products?”
It is no surprise then that France comprises one-fourth of the global luxury goods market. Remy Krug, owner of the Krug champagne, says that it is the extraordinary diversity of climate and landscape that is very good for creativity. French craftsmanship and professionalism stems from the age of the monarchy and aristocracy’s patronage of crafts.
For Yves Carcelle, Louis Vuitton’s CEO, feels that Paris being a historical and cultural capital combines it being completely international yet intensely French. “Paris,” he says, “means luxury because apart from the designers, creative teams and skilled craftsman that work here, it is also the ultimate in luxury for an international visitor.” He also points out that Paris is the birthplace of couture fashion and luxury. The seeds were sown in the elegant court of Louis XIV, or the Sun King, in the 17th century. “The finest materials and bets craftsmanship came together to create a new lifestyle and consciousness of fashion that would echo throughout the world’” he says.
The Sun King wanted Paris to be a beacon of grace and tasteful opulence. He personally monitored every detail, from the lights that lined the streets to the styles of men’s shoes. Along with his finance minister Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV was determined to corner the world’s luxury market. This partnership resulted in the first economy driven by fashion and taste. The basis of their policies was simple: to prosper, imports had to be kept low and exports high.
Paris today is the cradle of the perfume industry. The world’s oldest perfume houses, Jean Patau, Chanel and Guerlain are located there. A stone’s throw away from Paris is Grasse- the perfume capital of the world.
Here is the middle of the 17th century the cultivation of plants for perfume production intensified and now, this tiny village has over 65 international perfume turnover and eight percent of the worlds.
The figures continue to astonish when it comes to wines and champagnes. Krug says, “Of the 300 million champagne and sparkling wine bottles consumed annually about 200 million are exported from France.” With a patent on the use of the name ‘champagne’, naturally all the champagne in the world comes from France.
The world’s most renowned champagne brands also come from here. Moet et Chandon, Krug, Dom Perignon, Veuve Clicquot, Bollinger or Pol Roger all have a combination of freshness, richness and a gently stimulating strength that no sparkling wine from anywhere else has achieved.
The reason so many French brands, whether champagne or haute couture, command this kind of global respect and slavish fan-following is their philosophy of obsessive attention to detail, adherence to the highest quality and absolutely no compromise. At the Baccarat museum in Paris, amidst scores of stunningly etched, cut and sculpted vases and goblets, lies one small vase singled out in the corner. Its painstaking hand painted pattern made it obvious that this was some artisan’s labor of love. But according to the curator, this piece would never grace anyone’s home as he reproachfully pointed to a part where there was a microscopic bubble on its surface that resulted in its banishment. “It is kept here to remind us of the high standards of perfection we aspire for,” he said. This constant striving for perfection and passion for the craft manifests itself across the board, whether in each handcrafted bottle of Krug champagne, or the fact that Hermes spends months creating each Kelly bag by hand and customers have to wait up to a year to receive it, or the fact that Dior only uses the finest quality sterling-silver zippers on their clothes.
To fuel, nurture and enhance this industry, Jean-Jacques Guerlin decided to form a company called Comite Colbert in 1954, with a common objective: to promote the shared values of quality, craftsmanship, innovation and tradition. Now, Comite Colbert has 70 of France’s top luxury brands in 10 different categories as members, from Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, to Baccarat and Remy Martin. Hugues Jacquet, former press advisor to the French consulate, says, “When I buy a French brand, there is a sense of not forgetting the past while forging into the future.” Jacquet says this respect for history comes from the city, because its shops and streets won’t let you forget old couture. “You see it on the streets, in the way Parisian women blend the classic with the contemporary, or knot a scarf in a hundred different ways. It’s something in the air and affects all your five senses. That’s what makes Paris, Paris.”
