Many successful luxury brands are rooted in origination tales of deprivation and loss. Founders’ responses to what random awfulness life throws up, makes their businesses more human, interesting and real. Truth, courage and humanity are qualities, as one gets older, that are as valuable as any luxury product.
Our latest article for Luxury Briefing magazine examines the matter. It's the thirteenth in our series and you can read all the others by following the links at the end of the article.
Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain, Dylan said. You may ask yourself what has this to do with luxury. Who wants reminding that the exquisite stitching of your Chanel bag Cotton & Wool Tweed & Gold-Tone Metal – only £8,420 - might have a place in a conversation about hardship and suffering.
Or, as you uncork your Château Lafite Rothschild, 1er Cru Classé, Pauillac, you remember that picking grapes involves much physical hard work, people bent over repeatedly for long days. At £1,349 a bottle, kinda takes the edge off, I know. But thinking about the creation of beauty – an essential component of luxury – can be humbling.
Many successful luxury brands are rooted in origination tales of deprivation and loss. ‘T over T’ old Fleet Street journalists used to call it. Triumph over Tragedy. Lives mixing resilience, determination, and an amazing ability to overcome. You will know many of the names, but maybe not the details. Their responses to what random awfulness life throws up, makes their businesses more human, interesting and real.
Truth, courage and humanity are qualities, as one gets older, that are as valuable as any luxury product.
Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. Born 1883 to a poor family. Her mother died of TB when she was twelve and her father abandoned her and her siblings. She was sent to an orphanage, where she was raised by nuns. There she learned to sew, and to appreciate the simple elegance of black and white.
Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, born in 1777 married François Clicquot at twenty-one. Her husband died six years later. Her husband's death may have been suicide. Madame Clicquot had to work. She ended up creating a wine that was different to others: less sweet, uncloudy, with smaller bubbles called champagne…
Joseph-Armand Bombardier, grew up experiencing brutal Canadian winters where mercury dips to below zero. Roads closed due to snowfall, people were isolated, essential services out of reach. He was obsessed with how to help people move through this difficult environment, because of a personal tragedy: his son died during the winter when there was no way to get him to a doctor in time. JAB went on to create the snowmobile, trains and aviation jets.
Thierry Hermès was born in 1801 in Germany but fled to France after his family was killed during the Napoleonic Wars. He started life as a refugee and orphan. The displacement and loss must have massively traumatic. Despite this he set up his first workshop in 1837, producing horse saddles for European nobility…
Salvatore Ferragamo was born into a poor family in 1898. By eleven, he was working in Naples as a shoemaker’s apprentice. The family struggled to make ends meet and moved to the US. And shoes were the way out. Becoming known as the "Shoemaker to the Stars," he returned to Italy, his soul saved by founding a shoe company in Florence in 1927.
Yves Saint Laurent was born in Algeria in 1936 with a troubled childhood marked by bullying. He moved to Paris for its fashion but was drafted into the army for the Algerian War of Independence. Military life caused a breakdown, leading to hospitalisation in a psychiatric asylum where he underwent ECT followed by lifelong issues with mental health, addiction, and depression – not to mention other consuming issues such as fashion and beauty.
Louis Vuitton was born in 1821 in a small village in France. His mother died when he was ten, and his father remarried soon after. Feeling neglected by his stepmother, Vuitton ran away from home at thirteen, walking nearly 300 miles to Paris. He became apprenticed to a box-maker and packer…
Henry Royce, born in 1863, faced severe poverty after father’s death when he was nine. His father's failed business left the family poor and Royce had to leave school to help the family. He worked as a messenger, a telegraph operator, and later apprenticed as an engineer. His talent for that led him to start his own business, and a friendship with a Charles Rolls…
Hans Wilsdorf, born in 1881 in Germany, was orphaned by the age of 12. Both his parents died within a short time of each other, leaving Wilsdorf and his siblings in the care of relatives. Hans managed to get apprenticed at a Swiss watchmaking firm and in 1905, founded something called Rolex.
Enzo Ferrari, born in 1898, lost both his father and older brother to the flu in 1916, leaving him to deal with the emotional and financial fallout. An obsession with motorsport saved him.
Similar themes that all show how difficult starts in life spurred the protagonists on to success. Their businesses reflected the very qualities they had in themselves: innovation, perseverance, and integrity. Plus, the vital ingredient of months and years of hard work.
Maybe the act of creating something beautiful, something of quality and made to endure is a way of bringing some good into the world. It is an optimistic thing to do. It says life is worthwhile. After all, these brands outlived their creators. The founders’ lives had value.
Luxury places huge value on who, why, where and how things are made. Heritage, provenance, craft, ritual, memory creators, experience-givers. Contrary to perceptions, luxury can also offer lessons for every life.
Read more from our Brand Matters series:
- How privacy and escape from the coarse excesses of the world is becoming more desirable for luxury brand consumers here
- The enduring importance of craftsmanship here
- Why craftsmanship's vulnerability will win in the tech world here.
- Creativity: From Origins to AI here
- Luxury is ageing gracefully here
- Thinking luxuriously here
- How distance creates desire here
- Why the pursuit of authenticity is paramount for luxury brands here
- Exploring the symbolism of colour for luxury brands here
- Why beauty, elegance, timeless high quality, durability and a little self-indulgence can be good for you here
- Why nature continues to inspire luxury brand design here
- The importance of being reassured here
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