Category: luxury | 奢華 | 사치 | 贅沢

  • Omakase and luxury futures

    Omakase and luxury seem made for each other. Think about the core elements of omakase: As a trend omakase has expanded geographically with Japanese cuisine. But it has also expanded in terms of categories covered. Koreans have taken omakase and pushed it into other areas: So how can omakase and luxury come together in the…

  • April 2024 newsletter – no. 9

    April 2024 newsletter introduction Welcome to my April 2024 newsletter which marks my 9th issue. We managed to make it through the winter and the clocks moved forward allowing for lighter evenings in the northern hemisphere. The number nine is full of symbolism in a good way. In Chinese culture it sounds similar to long-lasting.…

  • Very Ralph and other things

    Very Ralph Very Ralph is a documentary that celebrates the career of Ralph Lauren. What’s interesting is Lauren’s lack of expertise in fashion and design. Instead Very Ralph captures Lauren’s childhood ability as a stylist and art director to eventually create a Ralph Lauren world. Very Ralph became a descriptor of a style and a…

  • Boutique e-tailers

    The luxury sector is undergoing a transformation, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the world of boutique e-tailers. I am of a generation that grew up with boutiques, carefully curated fashion looks from multiple brands. Exclusive As a child, my Mam would get me jumpers as I grew up from different small stores…

  • Morizo and more things

    Morizo Akio ‘Morizo’ Toyoda, of the Toyoda family who made their first fortune designing automatic textile looms in the early 20th century and their second fortune as the founders of Toyota. During the week Toyoda-san is the chairman of Toyota Jidōsha kabushikigaisha. But in his spare time he liked to do circuit racing under the…

  • Vicki Dutton

    Vicki Dutton (or Vicky Dutton) was a fashion pioneer. Dutton was married to an Irish-born British civil servant working under the first Lee Kuan Yew administration of a self-run Singapore. She was a Malay woman living in Singapore. Singapore was recovering from the Japanese occupation, but there were still a large amount of social and…

  • Six hundred pairs + more stuff

    Six hundred pairs of Nikes in a custom-built house The six hundred pairs of Nikes are owned by a Japanese lady who now is head of marketing for Ugg in Japan. Previously she’d spent over 20 years in sales and marketing for Nike. Her house was designed around her shoe collection and the double height…

  • Complaint resolution + more things

    Complaint resolution My mind cast back to one of the first modules I studied at college. There was a lecture on the role of complaint resolution as part of customer services. The idea was that effective complaint resolution engendered trust in a customer service function and was more likely to increase brand loyalty and recommendation…

  • Innovation signalling

    What is innovation signalling? Innovation signalling has some similarities with its counterpart virtue signalling in terms of authenticity in terms of behaviour and the projected image. An organisation looks to demonstrate its ‘high degree’ of innovation with actions and projects with the external image firmly in mind. There may be an internal learning, or business…