什么会成为未来的奢侈品？

    或许有一天，珠宝可能变成一种服务。比如一对情侣在确定恋爱关系初期，走进一家珠宝店，请一位设计师打造一对能够反映他们当前关系的戒指。时光荏苒，当这对情侣觉得彼此关系又深了一步时，他们重返这家珠宝店。珠宝商将把他们的戒指重新设计，再打造一对能够反映二人关系迈入新阶段的戒指。随着这对情侣结婚、生子，这种服务还会不断更新。

    这正是珠宝商Pearlfisher构想出的“tbc”概念品牌，它在纽约和伦敦都设有分店。近日，Pearlfisher在其名为《奢侈格调》的报告中，畅想了未来奢侈品市场的可能发展模式。世界日新月异，科技已经使得一切都变得更加便宜快捷。而我们不妨扪心自问，几年后，奢侈品消费者想要哪些与众不同的东西？

    昨日的奢侈品今天可能已经“平民化”。纽约布鲁克林Huge国际创意公司的索菲•克莱伯指出，在过去，送货上门是只有富人才能享受的服务，而今天，当日送达等服务对于都市人来说已经不是新鲜事了。Uber等打车软件使得高档租车业务也变得平易近人。甚至管家服务的价格也不再那么高不可攀了。

    科技让一切变得更便携的同时，所谓“高度奢华”越来越难以立足。在该调查中，许多受访的奢侈品机构都反馈称，奢侈品业务要想与平价市场拉开距离，就必须要把体验做到更高的水平。比如，在不久的将来，当顾客走近一家普拉达（Prada）专卖店时，销售助理可能会获得一份关于顾客的尺码和品味的报告，使他们能迅速引导顾客购买他们喜爱的东西。

    不过，Gap或Target等平价品牌的消费者多久之后能用上这种服务？由于信息技术发展得非常快，任何一个品牌都不会长期独享这种技术优势。

    从某种程度上来说，高科技设备已经冲击了所谓“奢侈品”的概念。以价格达10800美元的Vertu署名触屏智能手机为例。消费者可以享受一年的“全球管家服务”，它的摄像头和话筒也是经过国际领先品牌认证的，但它依旧运行的是安卓系统，而且它的处理器可能还不如499.99美元的Moto X手机。从外在看，它的定制做得很漂亮，但作为一款设备，它没有任何突出的地方。

    一对价值22200美元的金伯利（Kimberly McDonald）耳环，除了是一对物件，没有任何特殊功能。人们购买这对耳环或Vertu手机，看中的并不是它们的功能，仅仅是因为它们是稀罕物。因此，奢侈品专家表示，奢侈品消费者今后的消费方向将是那种不仅少见，而且还能表达他们自身某些特质的东西。Pearlfisher公司称之为“从放纵到资产”的转变。人们不再希望让别人觉得他们拥有很贵的东西，只想让别人觉得他们拥有对的东西。

    这些消费者希望他们购买的东西能反映出他们的三观。Pearlfisher的报告举了Maison Martin Margiela公司的产品作例子，这家公司主打高档家居产品，比如它的一款夜灯的形状就像一具非常简单的古代灯具，材质是能够发出荧光的石膏。

    纽约时尚创意机构The O Group的克里斯汀•迪尔曼也认为这个理念很有道理，她表示：“或许在将来，人们将普遍接受这一理念，那时人们开始投资更少的钱买更好的东西，奢侈品品牌也要基于这个理念发展。”如果这一预测是正确的，那么不久之后市场将需要更多的专业策划人才。

    品牌营销机构Agency:Luxury的联合创始人洛葛仙妮•吉尼认为，这种转变的另一后果，则是新兴公司将逐渐蚕食守成公司的市场份额。虽然总是有消费者喜欢那种像Goyard Luggage那样拥有两百年历史的老品牌，不过吉尼表示：“如果你看看所有的大品牌，看看他们的社交媒体内容和他们的网站，你会发现他们非常自恋。”但是下一代的消费者可能对此并不买账。

    吉尼表示，新一代消费者想要的是能和他们对话的品牌。“新一代人想要能反映‘他们’的东西。他们不想像其他人一样盲从。”吉尼还举了一个名叫Anatomie的小品牌的例子，这个品牌的设计师与他最好的客户保持了非常好的关系，他们甚至邀请他到家里去给他们做造型。

    随着定制变得流行，服务可能成为一种大有可为的奢侈品。吉尼正在与一家名叫Presidential Private Jet Vacations的公司合作，这家公司专门规划完全定制化的旅行线路，所有行程安排都是通过私人飞机完成的。

    克莱伯指出，这种服务具有更深层次的价值定位：“如今，最大的奢侈品是时间。”那些可以为消费者带来独特体验，同时省却他们很多麻烦，并能带来附加值的服务，很可能将成为消费者追捧的对象。

    专家们认为，一些稀有体验也将变得更加珍贵。迪尔曼举了旅行杂志《Afar》为例，表示奢华型消费者更期望“深度游”。比如香槟公司VeuveCliquot在法国的兰斯有一家只有获得邀请才能入住的酒店，名叫L’Hôtel du Marc。该酒店具有新古典主义的建筑风格，以及一系列当代艺术作品。由于该酒店只有六间房间，能够入住的人少之又少。

    这并不是说，商品和科技在高端市场中已经没有一席之地了。越来越多的工程师正在把工夫下在设备上，而不是软件和网站等产品上。而机器的边际成本永远不会像软件与其它数字产品那样趋于零。

    杰西卡•班克斯是Rock Paper Robot公司的创始人，这家公司是一家高端的家居制造商，它的独特之处在于，通过使用物理学定律来生产一些貌似几乎不可能存在的东西（比如她的标志性作品是一款悬浮桌子）。班克斯表示：“我认为功能性、定制性和模块化是未来的关键，这也正是我的发展方向。”班克斯的公司还生产了一款神奇的吊灯，可以通过判断屋里人们的情绪来决定散射或集中光线。

    家居市场的高端定制化会朝着哪个方向发展呢？我们不妨想象一下：不久的将来，整面墙都用电子墙纸包裹，墙的颜色和图案可以迅速改变。再往后，说不定你只要下一条语音指令，家具就可以自己整理甚至像变形金刚一样变形，同一间屋子不一会儿就能从餐厅变成卧室再变成舞厅。

    如果说，明日的奢侈品消费者青睐的是那些能够表达出自我个性的品牌，那么随着时间的推移，它还会合乎逻辑地继续迈进一步：未来的奢侈品消费者很可能需要一些能够即兴发挥，精确适应目标人群品味的解决方案。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    Jewelry could be a service one day. A couple might go into a jewelry store early in their relationship and sit down with a designer who makes a ring that somehow reflects who they are to each other. Time passes. They return to the shop as they’ve both seen the relationship has progressed. The jeweler takes the same metal and diamond and refashions in it into a new shape to reflect the new stage. Then again as they marry, have kids, etc.

    This is the vision of “tbc,” a conceptual brand imagined by the New York and London agency Pearlfisher in its report, Luxury Mode, a forward looking imagining of shifts anticipated in the luxury market based on observations of today. In a changing world where technology makes everything so much cheaper (and so fast), it’s worth asking what luxury consumers will want a few years from now that everyone can’t have.

    Yesterday’s luxury is commonplace today. Sophie Kleber of Huge, an international creative agency based in Brooklyn, pointed out that rapid home delivery of goods was once only available to the affluent. Now, goods delivered the same day or close to it is a reality for the regular urbanite. Uber has made black car service commonplace. Butlers on demand are even offered at attainable prices.

    Which illustrates why being exceptionally luxurious will get harder as technology makes so much easier. A theme that many of the luxury agencies consulted for the survey kept returning to was the idea that luxury brands will take bespoke experiences to new levels as a way to stand out from the mass market. So, for example, soon customers may walk into a Prada store and the sales associate will get a report of their sizes and tastes to guide them to exactly what they might like swiftly.

    Yet, how long before that technology is comparably available to consumers at the Gap GPS 1.48% ? Or Target TGT 1.45% ? That sort of information technology scales so fast that any advantage a brand achieves digitally won’t last.

    High tech devices, in a way, undermine the very notion of luxury. Take the $10,800 Vertu Signature Touch Smartphone. It comes with a year of global concierge service, with a camera and speakers certified by top brands, but it is still just running Android, and its processor isn’t even quite as good as the one in the $499.99 Moto X. On the outside, it has beautiful customizations, but, as a device, it is nothing extraordinary.

    Yet a $22,200 pair of earrings from Kimberly McDonald have no features at all, beyond being objects. People aren’t paying for the earrings or the phone’s function, but their quality as rare objects. If that’s so, experts say that luxury consumer will be looking for something not only rare but that expresses something about them. Pearlfisher calls this a shift, “from excess to asset.” People won’t want to be seen so much having lots of expensive things, but just the right ones.

    These consumers will want to make purchases that illuminate something about how the buyer sees the world. Pearlfisherpoints to Maison Martin Margiela, with a homeware collection that offers products such as a night-light sculpted to look like a basic, vintage light fixture, in glow-in-the-dark plaster.

    The O Group’s Kristen Dillman echoed the idea of thoughtful, considered consumption. “Perhaps in the future,” she says, “we might see luxury brands playing on this idea that’s already permeated the culture, of people investing in fewer but better things.” If this prediction is right, expert curators may be more in demand before long.

    The other implication of this shift could be that upstart brands who know their following will erode the legacy companies’ market share, Roxanne Genier, cofounder of Agence:Luxury, explained. Though no doubt some will always like the story of 200-year-old lines, like Goyard luggage. “When you start looking at all the big brands, their social media presence and their websites, it’s all about me,” Genier said, but she doesn’t think that works for the coming generation of consumers.

    They want brands they can be in conversation with, she says. “The younger generation, they want something that’s them. They don’t want to be a copycat like everyone else.” In fact, beyond customization, Genier pointed to one small brand, Anatomie, whose designer has such a close relationship with his best clients that he’s been known to visit them at home to personally style them.

    As bespoke becomes the watchword, services may become the ascendant luxury product. Genier is working with Presidential Private Jet Vacations, which plans an entirely customizable itinerary, makes all the arrangements and escorts their guests through it in a private plane.

    Kleber spoke to the deeper value proposition of this kind of service. “The biggest luxury today is time,” she says. Services that can give deliver unique experiences but save clients the trouble of making them and add value to shared experiences are likely to be sought after going forward.

    Rare experiences are also likely to be more prized, experts agreed. Dillman pointed to Afar Magazine, saying that luxury consumers will look to “travel deeper.” For example, The champagne company VeuveCliquot runs an invitation-only hotel in Reims, France, L’Hôtel du Marc. It features neoclassical architecture complemented by a rotating collection of contemporary artwork. With just six rooms, very few people will ever get to say they’ve been.

    Which isn’t to say that goods and technology have no place in the high end market. More engineers are turning their skills to devices rather than digital products such as software and websites, and the marginal cost of machines never reaches zero, as it does with digital inventions.

    Jessica Banks founded Rock Paper Robot, a high-end furniture maker that uses principles of physics to make furniture that appear to do the impossible (her signature piece is a levitating table). She says, “Versatility, customization and modularity: that’s what I think the future is about. And I’m banking on it.” Right now, that consists of making a chandelier that can spread light out or focus it in based on the mood it senses in a room.

    Where might high-end customization of the home lead? Imagine whole walls covered in electronic paper whose color and patterns could change in a moment. Later, there could be furniture that could rearrange or transform itself at a voice command, from dining room to den to ballroom in the same space.

    If it’s a safe bet now that tomorrow’s luxury consumer will seek brands that speak to their unique selves, further down the road, logic says it would go one step further: affluent consumers could demand solutions that can adapt on the fly to precisely the person they want to impress.