Book Review: Deluxe: How Luxury Lost It's Luster

About two posts ago I mentioned the book, Deluxe. It was a great read and a well-written expose on the luxury industry and what is changing in that industry. Basically, the premise is:
1) Here is where luxury came from. Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Pucci, all these designers were artists and craftsmen that made their particular item exceptionally and their clientelle was the super rich.

2) Over time, corporations started to buy these older brands and focus just on making money. In turn, the growth demanded by shareholders served as a motivation to find a way to make more money. The emergence of the handbag is probably the biggest event that changed the luxury market. With huge margins, but cheap enough that the middle class can buy, the big luxury conglomerates had found one new way to sell the dream of luxury to everyone.

3) This "luxury for everyone" concept is watering down the idea of luxury and more crap with a good name is making it's way onto the market.

4) True luxury still exists, but man is it expensive. Hermes bags are a great example. This book has a detailed description of how they are made and it is astonishing.

All is all, the book is very interesting and it certainly points out a new facet of our society. It seems now that "Luxury" is something everyone is selling. Some people come from the bottom up, for example: The big watch made by Invicta - who the hell is Invicta? Some places take a traditional luxury trend (such as large watch faces) and just try to hop on board. You can also to do luxury from the top down - the old way. Make a product with exceptional skill, artistry, and love. If you've got talent, you product and its design will justify you ridiculous prices - example Christian Louboutin.

It is a fascinating book and the need to make ourselves special, or convey that to others, will always be a part of humanity. I guess if you are going to spend the money, do some research and make sure you're actually buying something made in Europe or that has some love behind it. Coach has been making their bags in China for a while - and no one seems to mind. I guess that is the power of the trend, which they kind of just chalk up to marketing. I'd like to have a little more faith in mankind, but alas - the proof is in the pudding.

Lessions Learned from a Cocktail Party.

This past weekend, my Fiancee and I threw a oh-so-hip cocktail party. It was a rousing success (if you went and disagree, please comment) but that doesn't mean it was without some areas that could use improvement. So, Sarina and I are determined to be the "us" in imprusvement. It is in my nature to find the "errors" and fix them, to make the next swaray (and there will be a next swaray) even better!

1. Don't get so much booze. We have a tremendous amount of sauce left - not so much beer, but lots of hard stuff. It isn't like it has a shelf life, but I got a little carried away at the packy. On the upside, I've already done the shopping for the next two or three parties!

2. Make sure what you, yourself, are going to drink is top shelf. I pinched pennies on the gin of the night, and was rewarded with waking up feeling like hammered shit. I did hear the Ciroc vodka was fantastic though - so those folks didn't have a skull-splitting headache at 9:30 AM.

3. Pitcher drinks are your friend! I made a pitcher of mojitos and it flew right out of that pitcher with limited work for me. Although the first batch was wicked strong, I stand by the idea. For next time vodka gimlets, cosmos, and mojitos will all be in pitchers so people can shake, pour, and drink. Next time there will be ice, shakers, and glasses in front of 3 pitchers and a laminated sheet of directions. Not that I don't like making drinks, but I would have liked to chat it up more.

4. More food! I thought we had a lot of food, but I was wrong. I went over to grab some for myself and people had taken out most of the savory dishes. We may have had a lot of sweets, but my Fiancee's awesome summer rolls were gone in a heartbeat. So next time more savory finger foods, and definitely more cheese from Formaggio Kitchen. http://http://www.formaggiokitchen.com/

5. Make sure all the food is pleasing to the eye. I made eggplant caviar (like babaganoush), for a dip - due to the roasting process it comes out in a not-so-appetizing brown color. Also, the recipe called for lots of garlic and onions (raw) and it was rather aggressive in it's smell. On a crostini, it tasted really great, but it was a hard sell. In turn, this wasn't very popular.

6. Stupidly, I didn't get little paper plates - so we ran right out of plates pretty fast. Thank God for the "Rinse Only" cycle on the dishwasher.

7. Shrimp cocktail is a no-brainer. Make more of this next time.

8. Task someone with gathering glasses to be washed yet again. Because we ran out of non-martini glasses, I ended up pulling out some red Solo cups. Plain awesome.

9. More than one trash. The kitchen/bar ended up being a popular spot, so the trash was hard to get to. If we had another one by the food, it would have been easier for everyone.

10. Have some non-alcholic soft drinks. We didn't have soda, or sprite, or coke. That was a mistake, especially since it is so cheap. I had some soda water, but that went into the mojitos! I just don't think of soft drinks at a cocktail part. That is an easy fix though!

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate

So, my beautiful fiancee Sarina tells me that she read that this ingredient Sodium Luaryl Sulfate (SLS) was in my shampoo and she thought it was irritating her skin due to some some contact. She tells me about this and its cousin Sodium Laureth Sulfate. Apparently these things (along with Ammonium LS) are cheap cleansers and foaming agents. These chemicals are in pretty much all soap and shampoo, it is crazy how much of it is out there. Not surprisingly this is a chemical derived from, you guessed it: Petroleum! I guess in larger concentrations it is pretty unhealthy and can be a real irritant and increase the permeability of skin (which is bad) so my OCD tendencies all kicked in!

I did an audit of all the items that I use on a daily basis, it was in all my drug store products. AXE body wash, shampoo, conditioner. My nicer stuff (Zirh) didn't have this in it, so that was cool. AXE apparently has lots of untested ingredients and bad stuff for you - scary! But to find products that don't have any SLS in it, I had to go to Whole Foods to get some soap and shampoo there. I was surprised you couldn't find more organic-type options at CVS, but alas. Anywho, I made the change and it is a little more expensive, but it smells fantastic and works just as well (if not better)! The rosemary conditioner is pretty nice in the morning...

Here is an alarmist and possibly biased article about AXE body wash. Apparently they spent all their money on truly awesome ads rather than safe ingredients.

http://www.natural-skincare-authority.com/axe-body-wash.html

Is Luxury the new defensive stock?

So, I've been reading a book called, "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost it's Luster" and since our little recession, I've been thinking about that market. All you hear from the talking heads on CNBC or whatever, is that we are in a recession and consumer spending is going to fall off.

For those of you that don't know, a defensive stock is something that's returns are less (or negatively) correlated with the business cycle. The classic example is a necessity or consumer staple. So, CVS will probably do okay because people still need drug stores no matter what the economy is doing. Other companies, like Home Depot, will do poorly because no one will spend the money on rennovations and home improvements during a recession. This thinking is also applied to the luxury market. The assumption is the recession will make people hold on to their money (or they will spend less) because of uncertainty in the economy and job market.

Now, in the last 10-20 years, the super-rich have become fully entrenched. Think back to Goldman Sachs's crazy bonuses only 2 years ago, the rich are richer than they've ever been before. There are also more of the super-rich now than ever been before and those people do not alter their spending based on the economy. Ducati recently started producing new $15k+ motorcycles for this super-rich class and they are selling despite economic worries. The true luxury items will be unaffected by the economic cycle because the wealth of the super-rich is so great, their spending behavior is unaffected by a recession.

Now, where this may effect the luxury market is in the broader appeal items, like a LV bag or something. Luxury companies make most of their money off lipstick, perfume, bags, and scarves because these are the items the average consumer can buy to get, "a piece of the dream" as luxury industry insiders say. However, I don't think this will be as effected as most do. The demand for hot items from Louis, Coach, Dior, etc... is so high their demand may be more inelastic than say, new vinyl siding, or a new computer. As such, middle market consumers will buy these items because they want them so badly, they'll make it happen even in a recession.

Now this is just a theory, but perhaps it is a good idea to keep an eye on a luxury idex or LVMH, Prada Group, and Gucci Group in the market to see what happens. The Robb Report Global Luxury index is at 82.21 on 4/23/08 at 10:08 am. Let's see what happens through our recession. I'm betting it outpaces the Dow.

One or the other

So, I've met people that have flown all over the world, and been to lots of different places and I have only been to Italy, and that was with my parents! So I was thinking, with people in my age bracket, it must be one of two things:

1) You make lots of money and can afford to fly around the globe.

2) More likely, it is a case of allocation of funds and priorities.

So, I got to thinking - Sarina and I make decent money, why is it we never seem to have enough cash to go to Fance or Spain or something. After some musing, I settled on two reasons.

1) Our priority (relative to others) is on our daily living situtation. We eat fantastic food at home, go out to great restaurants a lot, and we spend money on clothing, kitchen gadgets, and Gillette razor blades. We love our apartment, and also pay for that place. So, rather than saving up and going on a trip, we spread that money across our daily lives in smaller amounts.

2) As a symptom of our lifestyle and spending habits, we would want the same in our travel destination. If we were to go to France or Spain, we would search for Michelin starred restaurants and I'd try to find some obscure cheesemaker, boutique, penmaker or something to buy when overseas. Since we are crazed consumers, traveling abroad is simply a multipier of this consumerism for us. So when looking at what it will cost us, my need for the best (or at least the good) takes over and I price myself out of a vacation to France because we don't want to stay in an "ok" Hotel, or go to "ok" restaurants.

All in all, I think this is my problem, I should just get over it - go to see the sights, go to local restaurants, get a regular hotel, and eat the exchange rate. But something about that just bothers me, especially if I did that and end up having a bad experience! Argh, what to do!

Oh my first retraction!

I must say, I thought I had found a great shave. I thought I had it figured out, but now I am running back to the corporate teat of Gillette. I had to buy a razor for my flight, since they don't let you take actual razor blades on a plane anymore. When I tried the Gillette Fusion, I got a close and, more importantly, comfortable shave. With the safety razor, I had to suffer through shaving my neck, and missed lots of little spots, but this bad boy did the trick.
My cheeks and under my nose could be closer, but the ease and significant decrease in irritation have proven Gillette may be right.

Perhaps, sometime, I'll go back to the safety razor, but not for now. My skin looks better and feels great as well! I will, however, not deviate from my Art of Shaving products as they are pretty great and I feel all old-timey whilst applying shaving cream with a brush!

Still, all that buzz about safety razors on the net must be about something, but maybe it just wasn't for me. I did like the price of those blades though. Everyone said it was supposed to glide across your face, but I couldn't get that right. Ah well - back to costco for Gillette blades!

Wedding Planning

As some of you may know, I am engaged to be wed to the loverly Sarina Chhay on 9/5/2009. As such, we have already started the rigorous planning of our wedding. Sarina and I want it to be bad ass, so we are going full-bore on the planning process.

After our most recent vendor visit to Mimosa Floral, I realized this is a really fun process - at least for most vendors. With the florists, you have these people who are shooting out ideas, showing you different flowers, and you get to have them make you something from scratch! When do you really get to do that any other time? With the linens and decor, you get a chance to really make a cool room design. Sarina is gifted at this and has been putting in the work (in dispassionate amount) to get our ideas (her ideas) solidified and monetized.

Now, the thorn in our side thus far has been "entertainment" or DJs. For some reason that "industry" draws the biggest tools on the planet. Almost every single one has a receding hairline and a goatee. None of them strike me as cool, about 90% comment on their ability to "read the crowd" and "get everyone on the dance floor." These guys don't want your play lists, want to be able to interact with the guests and get on the dance floor, and want to be the center of attention. I'm not even the bride and that pisses me off! No other vendor sees themselves in this light, it is ridiculous. However, I think we've found some that can take direction, play our music, and stay off the mic and away from our guests. In a wedding of 60 people, the last thing I was is some stranger in a bad tux harassing my grandmother.

I'm sure there will be more on the wedding on this blog, but all in all it has been fun so far! Check out the web page Sarina made for the wedding.

http://bharnett1825.googlepages.com/

Word!

A fitness milestone

Recently I've been going to the gym. Nothing crazy, just some quick circuit training followed by some light cardio. I've gone up in weight on most of my upper body exercises, but since - haven't lost much weight and (according to my scale) - haven't lost any body fat. - I can definately see the change, but none of the metrics and the stubborn existence of my belly were telling me that I wasn't making too much progress. Son yesterday - went over to the pull-up bar to stretch out my arms and tried a pull-up. Bam! I did one! Now I've always been the fat kid in gym class who could never do one. I couldn't even do one when - was really lifting a lot after college. I felt great about cranking two out later in my routine and now I feel like I can take on that rope climb as well. Perhaps I'll visit the local grade school and demand a go at the rope climb. Self Esteem here I come!