When you go to fashion shows like the ones which took

place yesterday, to see two big names, Dior and Lanvin,

you stop and think about what luxury is. What is luxury?
Quality and not price? Yes, maybe, but it's not enough.
Luxury involves a much wider concept. If you
misunderstand it with richness referring to expensive
items only, then you have an old idea of luxury. Plus,
luxury is not necessarily elegance.

Luxury is not easy to define. The high-quality and

creative ready-to-wear is identified as a luxury symbol.
And it is, of course, from a business and brand placement
point of view, addressed to a high consumer range.

I think this term has been changing its exclusive

"richness symbol" meaning in time. As a matter of fact
today we can meet people who wear any kind of luxury
symbol without "looking" luxury. They only look rich.
Because today luxury involves exclusiveness, nearly
uniqueness, and not because it is addressed to few
people, because it's special instead.

Luxury is research, the chance to experience new routes,

to find new and not predictable or already seen
solutions. Experimentations are luxury. And it's a
fortune finding them and being able to have them. There
are for example dresses which really give you the feeling
of luxury for the way they have been made, for the
quality of manufacturing, whilst some other expensive and
intricate work are just opulent. Same for jewelry, shoes,
accessories.

Craftsmanship is luxury. A product is luxe when it is

handmade, tailored for few. Luxury meaning exclusiveness.
Are status symbols luxury? Yes, sometimes. Not
necessarily. Yesterday at the end of Dior's fashion show,
when all tailors came on stage, you could really get the
feeling that luxury still exists, related to tailoring
skills. Providing industrial products in this case.

In long Napoleon-inspired coats, as well as some lace-

embroidered evening dresses with trims and facings, you
could find that luxury. Meaning research,
experimentations. The collection was a combination of
'70s, '700 and grunge: light pastel-hued mini-dresses or
chartreuse, coats, jackets and blazers and slightly
flared pants, or shorts, or Napoleon-inspired to the
knee. Wide-brimmed slightly falling felt hats in
different colours. Nonchalant and easy look.

Lanvin was luxury. Meaning purity and class. Yes, because

luxury, as such, has to be sophisticated, it cannot be
translated into something vulgar. That's maybe rich, but
certaily not luxe. The collection, great and surely one
of Lanvin's best ones, opened with an almost rigorous
minimalism made up of essential lines and outstanding
fabrics and tailored coats, suits and dresses.

Black prevailing. Breitschwanz furs or mantles, silk or

lace or gazar or double satin dresses, special and
unique. One bracelet only, one necklace. Few pieces.
Select and special jewelry. The portrait of a woman who
can recognise luxury, the real one, not opulent but
discrete. That's why we define it luxury, because it is
about discrete richness.

And for the finale, fuchsia, crimson, cedar green, blush

pink, orange, cyclamen light dresses, featuring
interesting, feminine and appealing shapes. Here you go,
luxury is to be intended as a byword for exclusiveness,
research, experimentation, purity, class, discrete
richness. Luxury is not to be shown because it is made up
of details. Displaying it means vulgarizing it. Showing
your richness.