What is Luxury For You ?
After two days of surveying the Salon du Luxe, 2016 edition, I am exhausted… but inspired ! It must be said that this second edition promised a dream with a quote from Guillaume Apollinaire as a leitmotiv :
Il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles ! (it’s time to light up the stars !)
1200 participants, thirty-something exhibitors and a bunch of conferences one after the other filled with luxury shoppers. The energy, the passion and the encounters. All the ingredients were there so that the founder, Laura Perrard’s initiative, be appreciated.
So of course I had to test ! A sip of champagne, some caviar, and even nuts with truffles ! Of course I had to check out the stand « Orbital Views » to learn more about the future spacial tourism. Yes Ma’am ! I even made it to the l’Opéra in time for breakfast with “My private Opera” who has punctually welcomed us for the past 2 days.
And then suddenly I thought … what is my own definition of luxury.
Something expensive? Something very rare? Material, or on the contrary intangible? In fact, we each have our own definition of luxury… So I went to speak with some exceptional craftsmen around. Because this is what luxury is also, a savoir-faire held by a few people and exceptional requirements followed in order to achieve excellence.Such as Valerie Tanfin, artisan of feather art or Flory Brisset and her workshop of embroidery, sculpture and textile creation for Haute Couture.
Among all my meetings, I wanted to tell you about a 34-year-old French man, Ali Rakib, founder of Forweavers. A modern day Indiana Jones who travels the world to meet weavers and promote their work. Three French are among his “nuggets”! I plan on going to meet them.
Still in search for a definition of Luxury, I took the opportunity to ask Ali what his own definition was. He who sells fabrics to houses like Lanvin answered me :
« My luxury is to be free and do what I love ! »
Wouldn’t that also be the concept of Luxury in our modern world? Follow your dreams, take time to take care of yourself. As if “being happy” has become a Luxury. In this case, it costs nothing … Other than a big effort: that of lighting up the stars !