Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
Connected luxury
“Everything we use now online … blogs, etc, was what we did in
1990. There's no difference. That was how we started.”
—Robert Cailliau, Co-Founder of the World Wide Web
Suzy Brian's typical day begins at 7am. She usually starts off by scanning
through her emails while sipping her morning coffee. On this morning, she
opens her mailbox and observes that about twelve new messages have come
through overnight, mainly from the several newsletters she had subscribed
to, from luxury brands and other related websites. The first was an alert for
a blog post from
The Wealth Report
, a blog by the
Wall Street Journal
, say-
ing that the word
luxury
is dead. A quick read of the post and reader comments
reveals that several people think that the term
luxury
is currently “slapped
on everything from cellphones to toilet paper” and has therefore been ren-
dered banal. She thinks that the word has even become more over-used since
the beginning of the credit crunch by retailers and brands who desperately
present every product as luxury in a bid to make a sale. At least this is the
case in the home interiors market which she is quite familiar with. Anyhow,
she isn't convinced that luxury is dead because she knows that true luxury
still stimulates the senses, evokes desire and inspires respect. People just
didn't seem to understand luxury anymore.
The second email is from LuxuryCulture.com, where she reads that the
spaceship-like museum, the Mobile Art created by Chanel, has been with-
drawn from its world tour as a result of the global financial crisis. It was
supposed to be headed to London after the New York stop. She makes a note
to include this information on her blog and to jump-start a discussion about
it hopefully beginning from her Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York-based
readers, where the museum has recently showcased. She thinks the viewpoints
of those that visited the museum will give an idea of the influence of art in
luxury fashion and also if the exhibition provided a form of distraction from
the gloomy economy. She quickly clicks on the link in the newsletter which
re-directs her to the Luxury Culture website from where she downloads the
article in PDF and at the same time links to the Chanel website where she is
able to obtain an image of the Mobile Art in high resolution, which she will
later post on her blog.
Her third email is from Larry King via Twitter who she's following
ardently. He says that Tyra Banks will be on his show the following week
