http://vimeo.com/6834233 : Great video discussing Craft as an essential luxury and the decline of craftsmanship in a mass market economy-- from London Design Festival.
As many of you know, I'm looking to tackle the luxury goods market for my senior thesis.
In the diagrams above you'll see how I branch out ideas and obstacles for the three directions I'd like to go with luxury goods.
Enviroment:
-Making manufacturing processes more sustainable- (renewable energy- hand labor vs. machine labor)
-Using eco-textiles (organice cottons, terraskin, vegetable leathers, etc)
-Using water-based solvents (removable or chemical based adhesives)
-Better office practices
Consumerism & Social Responsibility:
- Removal of guilt of purchasing luxury goods (discreet luxury, purchasing being put in plain shopping bags, economic recession)
-Wealthy behavioral spending (Excessive shopping, vacant purchases)
-Counterfieting (Removal of counterfieting labor practices)
-Social status (Shifting what luxury goods mean)
-Counterfieting (Removal of counterfieting labor practices)
-Social status (Shifting what luxury goods mean)
Craftsmanship & Techniques:
-Fair Trade (promotion of fair trade within foreign factories)
-Dying of technique (reviving loss of craftmanship and skill sets)
-Quality of goods
-Local economies (Promote local craft and skills)
-Life long products (Giving local economies jobs in the future- take back programs
I've been thinking a lot about techniques, processes and the uniqueness of luxury brands. Here are a few great companies and artists:
DANNER.COM : High Quality Work Boots, "Creating Higher Standards"
Viberg Boots: http://vimeo.com/7017104 (Sorry video won't embed).
In terms of whom I'd like to contact, I'm currently talking about Luxury Goods with:
Ketty Maisonrouge, CBS Adjunct-Professor, President of Luxury Education Foundation
Michal Saad of Loro Pianni
Coline Choay/Joseph Altuzarra of Altuzarra
I'd like to contact:
The Special Projects Manager of the Non-Profit Organization Walpole which promotes growth in the British Luxury Goods Industry
Tomas Maier, Creative Director of Bottega Veneta, their business practices could prove to be of great assistance to my senior thesis and they're working towards a lot of the ideas I'd like to promote.
1 comment:
Very interesting, Patricia, and very smart to be re-imagining the "luxury" market by trying to eliminate the stigma that people now associate with expensive products. By focusing on the quality of materials, craftsmanship and social responsibility of high-end design, it might be possible to rescue the reputation of beautiful and expensive objects. After the latest period of "irrational exhuberance", we tend to mentally associate things that are of very high quality with conspicuous consumption and wastefulness.
Now, how do you intend to pull this off, and in what ways will you use design research to direct your explorations and ensure that your decisions reflect actual, measurable social and market conditions?
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