Future Laboratory

THE : FUTURES : REPORT
: : LUXURY
: : 2015
SPONSORED BY

Luxury Futures 2015
Report Contents
CEO : Trevor Hardy
Co-founder : Chris Sanderson
Editor-in-chief : Martin Raymond
Chief strategy officer : Tom Savigar
Head of consultancy : Letesia Gibson
Report editor : Steve Tooze
LS:N Global editor : Jonathan Openshaw
LS:N Global visual editor : Hannah Robinson
LS:N Global insight editor : Peter Firth
LS:N Global senior journalist : Rowland Manthorpe, Daniela Walker, Sharon Thiruchelvam
LS:N Global visual trends analyst : Aleksandra Szymanska
LS:N Global video journalists : James Maiki, David McGovern
LS:N Global visual trends researchers : Victoria Buchanan, Jessica Smith
LS:N Global picture researcher : Rachael Stott
LS:N Global junior journalist : Alex Jordan
LS:N Global correspondents : Stephanie Clapham, William Lee Adams, Ronojoy Dam
Creative director : Kirsty Minns
Art director : Joanna Tulej
Production planner : Alex Crouch
Production editor : Ian Gill
Sub editor : Jon Billinge
Senior designer : Joanna Zawadzka
Designer : Jonathan Cox
Creative artworker : Jacqueline Waller
Business development director : Cliff Bunting
Head of sales : Dominic Rowe
New business managers : Alena Joyette, Jonathan Ayres, David Backhouse, Eoin Keenan
Account managers : Trish Waters, Sam Schneider
Client service manager : Thomas Rees
Project managers : Tim Howard, Kristian Prevc
Special projects manager : Carly Woods
The Future Laboratory :
26 Elder Street, London E1 6BT, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 20 7791 2020
Email: office@thefuturelaboratory.com
thefuturelaboratory.com
The Future Laboratory is one of Europe’s foremost brand strategy, consumer insight and trends research
consultancies. Through its online network LS:N Global, it speaks to 300 clients in 14 lifestyle sectors
on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Contact : For further information on all our services please contact dominic@lsnglobal.com or call
+44 20 7186 0776. You can also join the conversation in our LinkedIn group, The Future Laboratory,
and follow us on Twitter @TheFutureLab.
LSNglobal.com
Executive Summary : 06
An overview of the transformative trends that
will shape the future of a £607bn ($950bn, €850bn)
global luxury market.
Market Overview : 09
Emerging markets remain engines of growth, while
the US and Europe stage a surprise comeback.
New Luxury Trends : 31
From Altruvation to Virtual Opulence, we reveal
the trends shattering old luxury certainties.
Top 10 Tastemakers : 49
The talented faces who are luxury’s tomorrow
people.
Immortal Luxe : 55
Core strengths of appreciation and long-term
thinking place luxury perfectly in the dawning
Age of the Long Near.
Luxury Index : 65
Our in-depth exploration of the modern
luxurian mindset.
Luxury Tribes :
Ascetic Luxurians : 89
We reveal the lifestyles of the worldly-wise yet
enthusiastic tribe who demand meaning and
fulfilment from luxury.
Luxury Tribes:
Sixth Continent : 103
Our road map to the shopping desires of these
restless globetrotters.
Innovates : 117
Meet the innovators who are surfing the luxury
waves of change, from Everlane to Nike.
Luxury Service Futures : 137
Welcome to the informal, emotionally intelligent
future of luxury service.
New Luxury Aesthetic : 151
A fresh comms and visual strategy for an
increasingly connoisseur-rich audience.
Design Directions : 161
Post-Faith, Homage Luxury and Marvelology: a trio
of design cues to paint your brand beautiful.
Showcase : 173
Ten cutting-edge spaces that capture how future
luxury will look.
Futures 100 : 203
Industry insiders from Jonathan Siboni of Luxury
Insight to Frank Marrenbach of the Oetker
Collection unpack the next emerging trends.
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‘Global luxury is entering another age of
exciting transformation as a new generation
of consumers comes to the fore. Disruptive
innovations will revitalise the overplayed
and stale narrative around heritage and
artisanship, and precipitate exuberant
growth in the $850bn global luxury market.’
Chris Sanderson, co-founder, The Future Laboratory
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4 : 5

Executive Summary
Trends Rising
Immortal Luxe
Luxury Tribes
Paradox and disruption are the powerful global
forces which the best and brightest in luxury will
be juggling in the second half of this consistently
turbulent and challenging decade.
Genuinely long-term thinking, radical acts of brand
reassessment, honesty and transparency, and a new
and very grown-up relationship of equals with an
increasingly Millennial audience will all play a part
in the transformative strategies adopted to lay claim
to a share of the £607bn ($950bn, €850bn) luxury
market according to Bain & Co.
Redefinitions of luxury heritage and craftsmanship
that embrace rather than disdain the paradigmshifting
powers of digital technology will drive a 7%
annual increase of the total luxury goods market
according to Bain, which will reach £297bn
($463bn, €419bn), an increase of 88% in 10 years
according to Euromonitor.
Emerging markets will remain engines of growth,
accounting for 32% of luxury womenswear and 44%
of luxury spirits by 2025 according to McKinsey. But
the US luxe market, valued at £50bn ($77bn, €70bn),
is also climbing according to Euromonitor, and
Europe will rise to £96bn ($149.8bn, €135.4bn) by
2018 according to Conlumino, so the old capitals of
luxury are also staging a comeback.
Incremental evolution is no longer an option for
global luxury. Old certainties are shattering and
now is the time for a giant leap forward into a future
where Dior, the very epitome of old school, is suddenly
at the forefront of immersive digital experience.
The grand French fashion house is not alone in
smashing shibboleths. Faye Toogood and Donna
Karan are dismantling the concept of seasonal
styles, and Tesla and Kering are going public
with their brand secrets for the betterment of all.
Top 10 Tastemakers
From concept retailer James Brown and couture
subversive Grace Wales Bonner to new wave artisan
Blaine Halvorson and China’s ‘avant-garde Anna
Wintour’ Shaway Yeh, we pinpoint 10 tastemakers
who are shaping luxury’s tomorrow.
As the age of short-term thinking founders on the
rocks of climate change, political uncertainty and
financial instability, luxury’s core strengths of
contemplation, appreciation, immortal products and
multi-generational long-term thinking are coming
into their own.
In the new Age of the Long Near, what Immortal
Luxe has to say suddenly makes perfect sense
to hundreds of millions of people who are sick of
consumption for its own sake.
Luxury Index
Our brand-new Luxury Index is an exclusive,
evidence-based exploration of the minds and
emotions of your luxury consumers.
This quantitative analysis of 2,004 luxury
consumers in the UK and US, replete with revealing
infographics and stunning visuals, unpacks their
attitudes to politics, the environment, society, culture
– and you.
It allows us to reveal 10 key attitudes that define
the luxurian mindset in 2015 – and to create luxury
league tables of the brands that they admire the most.
We probe and dissect two key emerging luxury
tribes – the world-weary yet optimistic Ascetic
Luxurians and the big-spending and restless Sixth
Continentals – adding detail and texture to our
Luxury Index overview.
In-depth research and case study interviews provide
a rich and unique glimpse into their worlds, allowing
you to begin imagining what they want and need
from your brand.
Innovates
Today’s innovators are riding the waves of disruption
reshaping luxury. From luxe clothing brand
Everlane’s clever adoption of Transparency 2.0
and a new kind of luxurian access by Nike and
Net-A-Porter to a hip marriage of tech and tradition
at Selfridges, clever brands are surfing the change
to their very definite advantage.
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MALBRUM PARFUMS BY OLSSØN BARBIERI, PHOTOGRAPHY BY
SIGVE ASPELUND
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HARVEY NICHOLS BY VIRGILE AND PARTNERS, BIRMINGHAM
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6 : 7

Continental Drift
A strong US dollar and the siren lure of a new
breed of luxury ‘aeroville’ airports are driving
major and disruptive shifts in Sixth Continent
spending patterns.
With the euro on the slide, luxury brands such
as Richemont, Burberry and Chanel are raising
retail prices in Europe while cutting them in
parts of Asia, reports the Financial Times. As a
consequence, Japan has seen an 83% rise in the
number of Chinese shoppers seeking relative
luxury bargains in 2015.
At the same time, the US, the world’s largest luxury
market in terms of sales, has seen a fall in traveller
spending as Chinese, Latin American and Russian
luxurians avoid unfavourable exchange rates, the
FT further notes.
This globetrotting tribe of luxury shoppers is
starting to think in terms of favourite airports
rather than favourite countries, as luxury brands
target their most innovative offers and formats at
shoppers in ‘aeroville’ hubs.
The global duty-free market will rise from
£31.2bn ($48.7bn, €44bn) today to reach £47.2bn
($73.6bn, €66.6bn) in 2019, an increase of 51%,
according to Conlumino.
London’s Heathrow Airport indicates the scale
of the Sixth Continent market. The airport’s
accounts show that a fifth of its revenue, just over
£500m ($780m, €705m), came from retail in 2014.
Nigerian luxurians, the top-spending visitors,
spent an average of £1,059 ($1,650, €1,495) per
visit, many using the Heathrow VIP personal
shopping service.
But Asia Pacific is the top focus for Sixth Continent
duty-free sales, accounting for 43% of the global total,
and home to two of the top three airports worldwide
in terms of income from retail: South Korea’s
Incheon and Changi in Singapore, reports Wall
Street National.
Dubai airport is the world leader with sales of £1.2bn
($1.8bn, €1.6bn), owing to an influx of Chinese
tourists, who made up more than 5% of the airport’s
total throughput and 13% of its duty-free revenues in
2014, adds the same report.
Metro Magnets
They are the Luxury 600: the cities scattered across
the globe that are becoming powerful magnets for
the vast majority of luxe spending.
These key urban centres will account for 85% of
growth in the luxury-apparel market in 2015, 66%
of luxury beauty products and 40% of consumer
packaged goods, according to McKinsey.
Luxury brands need to recognise that luxurian
shoppers in these Metro Magnet cities share core
consumer desires with each other rather than
with their fellow countrymen in smaller towns and
urban centres.
‘Luxury buyers in Shanghai and Beijing have
more in common with their counterparts in Paris
and Tokyo than they do with those in Zhenjiang
and Panjin,’ says a Boston Consulting Group
(BCG) report. ‘For this reason, brands must deeply
understand the demographic and sociographic
fundamentals in cities rather than allowing
research conducted in a capital to represent buying
behaviours across an entire country.’
Certain groups of cities are becoming specialist
draws for particular luxurian groups. The largest
markets for luxury women’s apparel include fashion
capitals such as Milan, New York and Paris, while
luxury skincare growth is concentrated in Asian
centres such as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing,
according to McKinsey.
The US contains six of the top 10 luxury spending
cities of the world, and more than 40% of the top
50, according to BCG. But Luxury 600 cities in
emerging economies will drive future growth.
Seven of the top 20 cities for luxury-apparel growth
will emerge from the 15 fastest-growing emerging
countries, or the Next 15, as McKinsey has dubbed
them; these will account for 90% of global luxury
growth across beauty and womenswear, says
McKinsey. Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Hong
Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Shenzhen and Tianjin will all
join the top luxury cities list over the next decade,
according to the company’s reports.
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LOUIS VUITTON, HEATHROW TERMINAL 5
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THE COSMOLOGY OF ST JAMES BY LOLA LELY, LONDON
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Revelation Brands
Serendipity is being strangled by the predictive power of digital mega-systems such as Amazon. Bricksand-mortar
browsing is all about the unexpected joy of a chance retail find hidden on a rail or shelf at the
back of a store.
‘When we browse in a shop or a magazine, we
discover things,’ says Douglas McCabe, CEO of
media consultancy Enders Analysis. ‘Online, the
opposite is true.’
Research carried out by Censuswide found that
50% of visitors to bookshops often leave the store
with an impulse purchase. By contrast, just 3% of
book choices on Amazon are unplanned, according
to Codex Group. Censuswide also found that 68% of
people agree that bookshops are still the best places
to discover books.
So innovative luxury names are becoming
Revelation Brands, creating inspiring and intriguing
journeys of discovery that aim to guide consumers
toward products they didn’t know they wanted.
Luxury fragrance brand Illuminum takes the
unusual step of using sensory deprivation to
surprise consumers at its Colour As A Narrative
project in London. A room in a Georgian
townhouse is transformed into a rough-walled
grey cave by liberal applications of volcanic ash
from Mount Vesuvius.
The featureless surroundings force visitors to
focus on their sense of smell as they choose from
37 unlabelled glass vials of scent, prompted only
by occasional questions about preferred ingredients
from expert staff.
‘You experience the scents through an intuitive
sense of discovery rather than the prescriptive
[guidance] we often experience in department
stores,’ says Asakala Geraghty, Illuminum’s
creative director.
Another luxury fragrance brand highlighting the
importance of discovery is Florida-based company
Babalú. The ‘casual luxury’ brand created the
Perfume Genie, a quiz-cum-digital display, in its
Miami store.
Customers walk through the interactive experience
and answer a series of questions, which helps them
find the most appropriate scent from Babalú’s choice
of thousands.
In another revelation strategy, Land Rover launched
its new Discovery Sport with a social-media
campaign that used more than 140 Instagram
accounts to allow consumers to create their unique
‘choose your own adventure’ story.
What this means to your brand
: Online predictive technology is a fine tool for
making those uninspiring everyday purchases
such as groceries or a new pair of socks. But what
consumers seek from luxury is revelation: a feeling
that chance and instinct have led them to the joy of
a rare and treasured item.
: Don’t aim to be quick and efficient. Take your
consumers on the road less travelled, on a
meandering journey of discovery through
their wants and desires to a surprising and
serendipitous destination, rather the quickest
route from A to B.
OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT :
SELFRIDGES FRAGRANCE LAB BY CAMPAIGN, THE FUT URE
LABORATORY AND GIVAUDAN. PHOTOGRAPHY BY HUFTON AND
CROW; HERMÉS WANDERLAND AT SAATCHI GALLERY, LONDON;
COLOUR AS A NARRATIVE DESIGNED BY ANTONINO CARDILLO
FOR ILLUMINUM, LONDON. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF
ANTONINO CARDILLO; ADVENT UREGRAM CAMPAIGN BY THE
BROOKLYN BROTHERS FOR LAND ROVER, LONDON; COLOUR
AS A NARRATIVE DESIGNED BY ANTONINO CARDILLO FOR
ILLUMINUM, LONDON
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As the world wrestles with the
interlinked threats of climate
change and political and financial
instability, a future is unfolding
that plays perfectly to luxury’s
greatest strengths.
The endemic short-termism at the heart of our economic system is being
recognised by consumers and business leaders for what it is: a clear and
present danger to our entire civilisation.
As Ralph L Keeney of North Carolina’s Duke University puts it, ‘Our top
killer isn’t cancer or heart disease or smoking or obesity. It’s our inability
to overcome our own short-term behaviour.’
This dawning realisation is driving us into a new era, the Age of the Long
Near. It is an era in which products such as Jake Dyson’s 40-year light bulb
are launched, Google’s Long Now Foundation plans for the next 10,000
years, and brands think in centuries rather than quarters.
Suddenly, luxury’s core values of contemplation, appreciation, immortal
products and multi-generational long-term thinking are becoming central
to a society falling out of love with consumption for its own sake.
Never have hundreds of millions of consumers been more ready to listen
to what Immortal Luxe has to say…
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FONDATION LOUIS VUITTON BY FRANK GEHRY, PARIS
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Our new Luxury Index offers a unique
and revealing insight into the attitudes,
emotions and mind-set of the globe’s
burgeoning Luxurian population – by
talking to the Luxurians themselves.
We spoke to 2,004 luxury consumers in the UK and USA about their politics,
their attitude to the environment, their feelings about the changing society
and culture around them, and their views on a range of luxury goods that
included one-on-one time with a celebrity and going on a trip into space.
Their answers were plotted against our Five Stages of Luxury, the taste
framework we have developed to chart the emotional and psychological
journey of a luxury consumer. Based on Abraham Maslow’s famous
Hierarchy of Needs, this psychological methodology tracks the luxurian’s
development from stage one, a pure excitement in expensive products, to
stage five, the spiritual search for experience and poetry.
We have also used our Luxurians’ responses to identify 10 key attitudes
that define a Luxurian mindset in 2015 – and to create Luxury League
Tables of the brands that they admire the most.
Our in-depth quantitative research also revealed the adoption levels for
each stage of luxury of the five key trends we believe will transform the
sector in 2015 and beyond:
Read on – and take a quantitative, evidence-based step inside the mind
of your luxurian audience…
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Stage Three: Emotion and Experience
Stage three luxurians seek experience
and emotional impact rather than
brand and value. These once niche
and elite preoccupations are now the
luxury mainstream, and this group
is by far the most populous.
Of the 41% of consumers who place themselves in
stage three, the majority are Boomers (46%) rather
than Millennials (25%), and Flat Age values are
reflected throughout this stage.
Stage three luxurians are above average for
wanting to feel healthier (36%) and wanting to feel
good about themselves (38%), reflecting the desires
of an older demographic. But they are also slightly
above average for wanting to travel more (41%).
UK luxurians identify well above average as
part of this stage (47%), while their US peers
score 35%, reinforcing an American bias toward
luxury in material form and a UK leaning toward
luxe experience.
Interestingly, stage three is the first stage
to contain slightly more women (51%) than men
(49%), suggesting that the emotional layer of luxury
is something that draws in the female population,
while more men prefer luxury that can be seen
and touched.
Stage three luxurians may exhibit a more spiritual
approach, but they are the least radical. They are
the only stage to score below average for liking
some degree of change in life (-6%), with Boomers
in particular (-9%) avoiding the new and unfamiliar.
They are much more likely than average to assume
affluent people vote for right-of-centre parties
(64% compared to an average of 55% across the
other stages) and slightly more likely than average
to assume affluent people do not care about the
environment (34% compared to an average of 31%).
Stage three consumers are also far more reluctant
than any other stage to engage in the sharing
economy, falling behind average for every activity,
including renting out their home on Airbnb (8%),
hiring a piece of jewellery (7%) and even using
Uber (28%). And this stage was also the most
resistant to trends, with all adoption levels falling
below average.
These luxurians are something of a paradox,
seeking emotion and experience, but with strong,
fixed ideas of how they want it to be realised.
Stage Three: Emotion and Experience
41%
DEMOGRAPHICS
GENERATION
The majority of Stage 3’s are
Baby Boomers
BOOMERS
46%
Less concerned with brand and monetary value, Stage three’s are more interested
in the uniqueness and emotional impact of luxury experiences.
INCOME
A fairly even split across incomes, with
slightly more in the third quartile
STAGE 3’S ARE THE MOST RESISTANT TO THE SHARING ECONOMY:
USE UBER
RENT A HOME ON AIRBNB
USE AIRBNB
RENT AN ITEM OF CLOTHING
USE A CARPOOL SERVICE
RENT OUT YOUR HOME
RENT JEWELLERY
RENT OUT YOUR CAR
RENT ARTWORK
MILLENIALS
25%
GEN X’S
29%
TOTAL%
STAGE 3’S ASPIRE TO PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT:
TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF +3
35%
(+/-%)
-10
-9
-9
-6
-9
-11
-9
-9
-8
AVERAGE AGE
OF STAGE 3:
52
MOST STAGE 3’S
ARE WOMEN:
49% 51%
MOST STAGE
3’S ARE FROM
THE UK:
STAGE 3’S ARE:
I WANT...
TOTAL%
(+/-%)
CONTENT
TO TRAVEL MORE 37% +4 (+7)
TO FEEL HEALTHIER +5
31%
TO BE MORE CONFIDENT +2
14%
13%
16%
16%
4TH
21%
3RD
28%
19%
22%
29%
27%
32%
1ST
25%
2ND
25%
38%
UK
57%
US
43%
43%
HOPEFUL
39% (+5)
TREND ADOPTION
Seasonless Style Altruvation Virtual Opulence New Urban Guilds Revelation Retail
51% 47% 44% 39% 27%
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New Luxury Aesthetic Toolkit
1
2
3
Think Instagram First
Kenzo and Chanel design their catwalk
shows to provide ‘Instagram moments’. For
maximum impact, you need to
think first about encouraging
social-media sharing.
Get Phygital
The app-interactive cover of the eighth
issue of Garage magazine signposted
the way in which your brand will need
to plan physical-digital synergies to
connect effectively with a new generation
of luxurians.
Blur Your Branding
Millennial luxurians want you to work
with luxury brands that they admire.
Note the way that Donatella Versace
became the face of Givenchy’s autumn/
winter 2015/16 campaign.
4
5
6
Practice Whole-System
Thinking
Luxury consumers are looking for
powerful signs of collaboration for the
greater good. So follow in the footsteps
of Luisa delle Piane and Dimore Gallery,
the influential Milan art institutions that
swapped venues for three weeks.
Have Fun With Heritage
Combine humour with heritage. Take
a leaf from Harvey Nichols’ loyalty app
campaign, which features a subversively
tongue-in-cheek tale of shoplifting and
legal freebies.
Get Real
Move away from impossible images of
perfection and recruit everyday faces
to represent your brand. Storm’s Feels
casting app and Miu Miu’s Subjective
Reality campaign capture the zeitgeist.
Design Directions : 161
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THE FUTURES REPORT : LUXURY
DESIGN DIRECTIONS
164 : 165

10 Agender at Selfridges by Faye Toogood, London, UK
Recognising that shopping by gender is yesterday’s
news, this pop-up space takes inspiration from
gender-neutral fashion collections to stage a retail
exploration of masculine and feminine, and the
interplay between them.
: House-like structures cutting through each
shopping floor emulate the domestic, but are
rendered challengingly transparent by walls
of steel mesh rather than brick.
: Abstract sculptures sit within spaces that
vary from vulcanised rubber and latex in a
warm pink palette to primal art brut horsehair,
steel and concrete in naive earth tones.
: Pared-down packaging of white canvas
bags and stiff brown boxes frees garments
from ‘the preconceptions that would ordinarily
colour such purchases’.
fayetoogood.com
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