Why Do Asians Love Luxury Labels

China Travel Services

Why Do Asians Love Luxury Labels?


On the corner in Paris where the Champs-Elysées and Avenue George V meet, there is a Louis Vuitton shop. In that shop, the customers, almost without exception, are Asian. The Japanese women who come out carrying their toffee-colored shopping bags say "Cheese" as they pose for pictures in front of the entrance.

The French people who witness the spectacle wonder, "Can't they buy those bags in Asia," or, "Do young people have that much money?" A student at the University of Paris XII says someone “once wrote down the name of a product and offered me 100 euros to buy it for them, but I was afraid it was some sort of illicit deal, so I turned it down."

This "proxy buyer" business sprang up because such goods are cheaper in France than in Asia, and because there is a limit to how much of certain products one person can buy. In fact, someone who appeared to be Chinese was seen taking just-purchased goods from the labeled bag, putting them in a black plastic bag and tossing away the original one.

Japanese and Koreans aren't the only ones who go bananas over luxury brands. But there are clear differences in the attitude Asians on one hand and Europeans and Americans on the other take. In February 2001, when the Weekly Chosun interviewed the CEO of the fashion sector of LVHM (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton), the business group that owns such brands as Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, he said, "Asians are 'brand-picking people.' So they are a big and important market for us."

In Japan, they sell popular package tours to Paris during the city's biannual "solde" sale periods. At these times, major Paris department stores like Printemps, Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché are filled with Japanese-language information broadcasts, and Japanese salespeople are specially brought in. When they are finished hunting name brands in Paris, some head to Milan, Italy, which starts its sales period where Paris leaves off.

The Japanese also like catalog-style magazines crammed with designer brands and their prices. Korean magazines devoted to luxury goods, by contrast, hide the price -- which they claim is "undecided" -- while presenting only the luxurious image of the goods themselves. Japanese writer Usagi Nakamura details her devotion to labels in her book, "I Like Name Brands."

She once went into a Chanel shop to buy an umbrella, but the store clerk told her not to use it when it rained a lot. He said it was OK to use the umbrella when it sort of drizzled, but he worried that it would leak in a downpour since it wasn't waterproof. After giving it a little thought, she bought the umbrella, saying, "I'm not buying an umbrella, I’m buying Chanel."

That is why the major customers of the French and Italian luxury goods markets are Asians. If there is a difference between nations, it's that Korea follows in Japan's footsteps, and China follows in Korea's. Currently, overseas luxury brands divide the Asian market between "Japan" and "areas other than Japan," but Korea and China are becoming separate targets of their own.

The desire for luxury goods is universal. The difference is that there is a strong tendency among Asians, who stress "we" over "I," to seek luxury brands to fit into a particular group. Perhaps this is the reason Europeans will buy something because no one else has it, but Asians will buy something because someone else also did. Research on consumer behavior, meanwhile, shows that while most European customers of luxury goods compare price and function, their Asian counterparts look for name brands.

(englishnews@chosun.com )