I had a conversation with a group of people that worked in the luxury industry, as I do, and almost everyone in the group prefaced their contributions to the dialogue with several versions of “Luxury isn’t saving any lives…”
I happen to disagree.
Luxury is not saving lives in the traditional sense, but the above sentence concerns more than just performing heart transplants and brain surgery. The statement is an implication that the jobs we perform are somehow inferior to that of, say, a doctor. I am not suggesting that we should have stylists going into the field side-by-side with medics to assist disaster relief in third world countries. It is just that every individual person has his or her own role in this world.
Many people in our business are especially focused on the mindset of the aspirational consumer. This is because we are an enterprise built on a foundation of wealth and the people who aspire to be wealthy. We are the front lines of this movement. We manufacture, design, sell, and suggest what people not only want, but hope to have one day. This is a very important cog in the machine of our society. The people at the top of the financial food chain have made it there by:
a. Working hard in order to have a comfortable life.
b. Being born into wealth and working to maintain their existing comfortable life.
We provide this life not only for the affluent, but also in the minds of all of the hard working people that desire to be there one day.
We also help provide individuals who are one step closer to their aspirations, be it financial or otherwise, with the confidence to take the final leap. For example, a medical student (poised to be very successful in his field) walks into a department store in preparation for interviews with a number of illustrious hospitals in order to land the best residency he can. This young man has the ability to effectively cut you open and replace one of your organs, but when it comes to picking out a shirt-tie combination, his brilliance escapes him. At the moment, the latter is most important because if he doesn’t feel confident on his interviews, he may not get the job that will allow him to save lives in the most traditional sense. I know that this perspective may be a stretch, but it is a very real scenario in the minds of many people in the midst of getting married, walking a red carpet, or going for the career of their dreams. Our roles are defined. We are here to motivate, inspire, and fuel those who aspire. Not to mention, we make you look good.
Fashion Fridays is a weekly column where we celebrate the arrival of the weekend a bit early by taking a break from the business side of things.
Author: Carlos A. Martinez
Copy Editor: Gina Conforti
Photo credits: i-zcream.com
