The Road to Luxury

Chapter 6Family Houses, Corporatization, and New Entrants

Twenty years ago, luxury was completely family-based in France. Families knew each other and their habits were well established. They would spend summers together in Monte-Carlo and winters in Zermatt. They worked at Place Vendôme, Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, or Avenue Montaigne.

It was the natural order of things. French luxury families were known and well established. Their customers were confident.

The House of Chaumet jewelers and watchmakers was the first family to rock the boat. Luxury was turned on its head. How was it possible? Shady dealings? And yet it was true: In the 1980s, the Chaumet brothers started down a path without knowing its course or where their journey would end. Confidence collapsed. Customers preferred to say nothing, abandoning their treasures to fraud and bankruptcy, so as not to risk a scandal and to be able to return to anonymity. But it weighed heavily upon them. The family jewels had slipped into an unpredictable torrent. Grandmother's diamond had been sold twice, with the emerald going along for the ride. In short, there was no public scandal, but the discreet and felt-lined world of luxury took a major hit.

The luxury planet was shaken, but the field had already been more broadly undermined.

The nephews, cousins, brothers, and sisters of luxury had had enough of seeing their parents or their uncles living high on the hog while they, as second in line, were left behind, since the rule ...