Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

280 Fashion Marketing
square metres, while their principal stores in other cities, such as Barcelona
and Athens, are much smaller, measuring 515 square metres and 825 square
metres respectively. Within a crowded and highly competitive market, luxury
fashion flagships need to impress – principally in terms of architectural scale.
The very essence of luxury requires an association with extravagance and
space, confidence and stability. The flagship store therefore serves as the physical
manifestation of these intangible, yet vital brand characteristics through
the provision of what may seem an excessive consumption space. The availability
of what appears to be excess space becomes a defining element of a
luxury consumption experience.
Third, and crucially, these flagship stores are physical declarations of luxury
as communicated through their architectural features and the quality of the
materials used. Consequently, it is now common for luxury retailers to commission
celebrated architects to design their flagship stores. Notable collaborations
include Rem Koolhaas who has designed for Prada; John Pawson for
Calvin Klein, and the leading architectural practise, Future Systems, who have
designed flagships for Comme des Garcons and Marni. The importance of
these architects to luxury fashion brand positioning is examined later in this
chapter.
Other than underlining their luxury market positioning, the significant financial
investments that are made with respect to flagship stores are an important
indication of their strategic role in the process of developing and supporting
international expansion. The strategic significance of the flagship store within
an international context can be categorized in four ways as delineated below:
1 as a market entry method;
2 as a conduit and support for partner relationships;
3 as the focus for marketing communications;
4 as a blueprint for store development.
Flagships: as a market entry method
As has been previously indicated, international luxury flagships are an expensive
and on the face of it, a potentially uneconomical distribution method.
However, for many luxury fashion brands, the flagship store marks their first
direct investment within a foreign market. The role of flagships as the first
means of entry into a foreign market has been unrecognized within the academic
literature (Moore et al., 2000). However, recent developments within
China, in particular, have shown that luxury fashion retailers open landmark
flagship stores in strategic locations at the earliest stages of their business
development within foreign markets. For example, by opening a flagship
on Shanghai’s Bund, the Armani Group proposed that this ‘demonstrates
our long-term commitment to this fast growing market, in which we plan
to develop comprehensive distribution and retail channels for each of the
Group’s main brands and product lines’ (Gruppo Armani S.p.A., 2004b). In the