"luxury in 2022 should be both locavore and omnivore." Erwan Rambourg
At the end of 2020, I published a book on the next decade of luxury growth in a post-COVID era. Some people told me I was far too optimistic. That, having moved to New York, I had become a little American, half-full glass, over-enthusiastic. In fact, the sector has exceeded all expectations this year and I could have been even more optimistic in my book …
Of course, from a macroeconomic point of view, many consumers have experienced significant wealth creation: equity markets have reached historic rates in Europe and the United States, the secondary housing market is doing well, and members of the middle class have been able to hoard with little spending on travel, luxury hotels, and other star-starred restaurants.?
That said, beyond strong sales, what is most remarkable for me are the profound transformations of luxury business models. These changes will affect the sector well beyond the current period. Anglo-Saxons use the expression "Silver lining" to analyze the benefits of a crisis with the idea that at something, misfortune is good. The pandemic has had a strong influence on the sector and has enabled its players to make progress, for example, in service to local customers, particularly European customers. The Flagships in Milan or Paris were not used to dealing very effectively with Italian or French women: this is now the case. The crisis will also have affected the acceleration of online sales and the improvement of the quality of the sites and services offered with better training of sales forces, initiative, risk-taking... Another example is the closure of third party distributors to focus on their own stores, which guarantee price control and better brand representation. In short, a professionalisation of the forced market sector which, in the end, makes the consumer the great winner of the crisis.
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