I discuss the 'luxury disconnect' and ask YOU a controversial question.
🎁Want a FREE course? 👇Are you new to the Leathercraft Masterclass? 👇To get started, claim your video course (& discover the #1 thing every leathercrafter NEEDS to know).
Go now and sign up! The video course (instant access) will be in your inbox in UNDER 60 seconds from now! ⏰📥
👉 https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/fineleathercraftcourses
I'll see you there, Philip
Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft:
https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/
Other useful resources:
Follow on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass
Read the Blog!
https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1
Follow on Tik Tok!
https://www.tiktok.com/@leathercraftmasterclass
Follow on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass
Show notes:
So a woman walks into a luxury leather good shop she walks around and Marvels and all the beautiful skins and exotic leather handbags that she sees and while she's walking around the store she looks into the corner of the store and sees the most beautiful leather handbag that she's ever seen exotic leather crocodile skin Gold Hardware the lot the most Exquisite design so she walks over to investigate a little bit further and as she reaches over the table to grab the bag she lets out a loud fart
absolutely mortified she's praying that nobody heard so she looks over to her left and there's nobody there and she looks over to her right and there materializes her worst nightmare a sales assistant who was standing there the entire time now at this point she's oh Beyond praying hoping that he didn't hear what she did so first of all he says hello Madam how can I help you today and she kind of mumbles I I just wanted to to see this handbag and and see how much it cost um Adam I could tell you the price but uh if you farted by merely touching the handle you're gonna [ __ ] when I tell you the price
oh terrible terrible terrible joke um it's the only luxury joke I know so I thought I'd start out with that actually no it's not the only luxury joke I know I do know another one and I you know what I'll tell you closer to the end of the podcast if you're that interested in hearing it okay so what's this podcast about what am I talking about today what am I going to be taking you through so as some of you know on my Instagram and indeed on my YouTube channel if you've been watching my stories and my shorts and things like that you may occasionally see me going up to London which is only about half an hour no about an hour away from me here in Kent and uh I love going doing a little bit of shopping in London but also visiting some of the luxury stores in the high-end stores like Harrods and selfridges and you know walking down new Bond Street and seeing some of the beautiful boutiques that they have there indeed in my last podcast and vodcast I talked about my visit to pick at London and Swain Edney Brigg but something that I get and I'm not there that often maybe you know a handful of times a year but something I get I get a lot of people saying you know it was great to follow you along it's great to see all that stuff and you know all the luxury Brands and all their Glory but there is not a small minority of people that love to how can I put this politely mock the idea of luxury Brands uh expensive Exquisite items and I always talk about how it's not worth the price uh people that can buy those have got more money than cents uh wealthy people can't buy taste and all that kind of thing and I guess this is I guess you could call it kind of a pushback podcast in a sense on on that mentality to some extent yeah there are Brands out there that charge ridiculous prices for what you're getting especially ones that increase their prices a huge amount every year Chanel comes to mind if you look at some of their most famous bags now compared to just a few years ago the prices pretty much doubled but you're getting the same thing you know it's um they're playing a game and it's it's ridiculous but that is an exception to the rule I think there are a lot of great luxury brands that are producing Exquisite items for a very high price and I think sometimes and we can all be guilty of this we can't appreciate what we don't fully understand and this podcast is all about why that is but also how we can understand luxury a little bit better because some of us produce luxury leather goods or find other goods for as a brand as a full-time job as a part-time work to complement your day job and some people have aspirations to produce luxury leather goods in order to to sell so I think it's very good for us all to learn how to appreciate luxury and not just in the sense of leather goods but as a concept so I want to cut I want to start out with a question and I guess it could be seen as a controversial question but I'm going to ask it anyway but if you don't like the answer do remember that it's you that's providing the answer and if you don't like it you created it so this is not really a statement it's just a question and that's all it is but this is the question if you don't appreciate luxury do you have any business creating it if you can't enjoy the Finer Things in life why are you making the Finer Things in life and asking others to enjoy interesting question and this is mostly as as individual Artisans because because of course you might get Craftsman let's just say Ms creating ridiculously expensive handbags and they may not enjoy the Finer Things in life okay probably do but many of them may not who knows this is individual Artisans because the Craftsman there at Hermes they didn't design their famous handbags they didn't design any of their their famous luxury leather goods unlikely but they learn how to create them so they're separate from kind of what we do which is creating it ourselves and many much of the time designing it ourselves as well okay we're choosing the Leathers we're choosing the colors oftentimes into you know choosing the design and the shape of the the finished article so we are at every stage of the production so I think it's more important for us as individual cross people to understand luxury why people like luxury and the more of an appreciation you have the better you will be at creating it so my goal here is to just change your perspective a little bit in helping you to understand that so along the lines of can you truly appreciate what you don't yet understand I'm not asking you to go out and take out a loan and go on a luxury goods spending spree and just buying it because oftentimes when I'm going to London um I'm not up there buying highly expensive luxury leather goods I might be doing a little Christmas shopping I might go up there for the day or stay over in a hotel and sometimes I come back and I haven't really bought much at all even though I've been to some of the more famous watch boutiques or along Savile Row to view the suits um you know visiting John lob and a few other different places that I just really love visiting it's it's inspiring even if it has nothing to do with the craft that I'm involved in um I find it really inspiring and really kind of gives me ideas and and motivates me I guess is is another way of putting it really gives me motivation and brings back that excitement for for the fine details in in luxury and craftsmanship so giving a little pushback on on the first thing I I talked about really was was people saying that oh you know you're only paying for the name you're only paying for the label yes and no and when I say no when we say a name Louis Vuitton is just a mouth Noise Okay we move our vocal chords in a way and then we move our lips in another way and it creates the sound associated with Louis Vuitton but the question really is is what conjures up in your mind what comes to mind when someone says that to you and you might think of their famous monogram you might think of trunks you might think of some of the handbags you might think of some of their silk scarves and other luxury items that the brand is famous for so it's not you're not really paying for a name as such what you're paying for is a reputation what you're paying for is a legacy because the reputation associated with that name connected to that name has sometimes in some of these Brands taken multiple Generations just to gain that reputation that incredible asset that now goes along with the name the name is just the code the link to that heritage to that luxury and every time someone says that name every time we say that name we invoke that reputation when we say Gucci Delvaux Goyard Hermes Louis Vuitton and various other different brands with each of those we have a different a different concept or a different Vision that comes to mind when people say that that name that is what you're really paying for so you're not paying for a name you're paying for a reputation and that's it very important to understand and absolutely people use these as indicators of wealth all the time you walk around you know the Posh areas of any big Metropolitan City and you've seen these people with you know head to toe all these high-end brands because it indicates to other people their social status their value their wealth their power even you know if you go back thousands of years I know it's a prehistoric human times if you came across somebody who's wearing several wolf skins as a coat to stay warm well what does that tell you what does that indicate to you about that individual well obviously he's such a good Hunter he can take the one of the most feared predators and kill them not just once but multiple times and his status within his social group within his tribe is probably going to be very high so we've been doing this for the dawn of man from the beginning of time this isn't something new this isn't a modern concept and although we don't really walk around wolf skins these days the brands the high-end Brands the exclusive items that people buy the handbags the cases the suits the coats the shoes the watches the sunglasses they're all little indicators that communicate without actually saying anything so I guess my message is even if you don't go out and buy the Finer Things in life try and developer an appreciation or an understanding of the Finer Things in life and it starts by gaining more information about these things not just luxury leather goods but the brands behind them the concepts the ideas the Heritage the history because that's really important in order to understand luxury which can help then Translate into the goods the leather goods that we produce as a great book by Stephen Covey The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People there's a quote in there that I really like and I think it is connected to what we're talking about today which is seek first to understand then to be understood okay seek first to understand and then to be understood in other words aim to understand luxury before asking others to view your work as luxurious so how do we understand luxury in a way that helps us to replicate that in our leather work in our craft and I think one of the greatest ways of doing that is going out and buying or even renting books okay go to your local library rent books showing the history around some of the most iconic luxury brands and this doesn't just mean leather goods my recommendation is to embrace luxury categories such as watches old Couture handmade shoes tailoring Fine Art Gastronomy luxury travel and that's just naming a few there's lots of different books on all sorts of luxury goods and experiences that I think are really going to help create an appreciation for luxury itself and another one that I think is really good to add to that list and if you can get these an audiobook is great as well uh luxury strategy the luxury strategy which is a great book that highlights what motivates people who buy the Finer Things in life because the more you understand what buyer's motivations are the more you can create items that capture their attention so that is my message today before we kind of look at Brands and kind of laugh at their prices and or maybe mock the people who are willing to pay those prices try and seek to understand first and understand the history and Heritage behind the brands but also what motivates people to buy from them even if the prices seem ridiculous to us and totally not worth it because perhaps we have a better understanding than the average purchaser of what makes good construction on a bag or what makes fine craftsmanship and we're seeing a lack of that in some of the items that are very expensive from these high-end brands you know it doesn't make sense to us see if you can find a way so that it does okay so I did say that I would finish this with the second only uh luxury joke that I know uh this is a joke about uh Rolls Royce so here we go.
so a Kia driver drives up to the traffic lights and pulls up alongside a beautiful Rolls Royce now the kia Drive is feeling a little bit outdone here so he rolls down his window and indicates nods to the Rolls-Royce driver to do the same and he does and he calls out to the drive and says hey my car has uh air-conditioned seats does your Rolls-Royce have air conditioned seats and the Rolls Royce driver looks over and says uh yeah I got air-conditioned seats so the kia driver thinks himself okay hey I've got champagne flutes in my uh in my Kia do you have champagne flutes in your Rolls-Royce and the Rolls-Royce driver looks over at him in a scoffing manner and said this is a Rolls-Royce it is the finest marque in the world the finest automobiles known to man yes of course my Rolls-Royce has champagne flutes so the kia driver again feeling a bit outdone thinks to himself and then leans over and says hey my kia has a bed does your Rolls-Royce have a bed and the Rolls-Royce driver feeling a bit annoyed simply accelerates away from the lights he's upset he doesn't have a bed and for the rest of the day bothers him so he makes an appointment at Rolls-Royce goes there speaks to them and ask them to put a bed in drives it around the back and leaves it with them and they construct the finest bed ever made for any Rolls-Royce with the most beautiful silks exotic woods and Brass trimmings the lot and they install it into his Rolls-Royce and he picks it up and as he's driving around he really wants to rub it in the face of this Kia driver so he drives around and spends the entire day looking around the city for this kia driver and at the end of the day just before he's about to give up as night's falling he drives past a car park and sees the Kia parked up in the car park so he pulls in and he pulls right up next to the Kia driver he gets out his Rolls-Royce goes over and knocks on the window,
nothing. he notices all the window is completely steamed up so he knocks again but louder
and then all of a sudden the window comes down and the kia driver pops out completely soaking wet and Rolls-Royce driver says look check in the back I've got a bed and the kia driver says, you got me out the shower for that?
ladies and gentlemen it's been absolutely wonderful for you to have me. Don't forget to like this video And subscribe if I made you laugh and I will see you in the next video thanks for listening take it easy laughs
thank you
Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass
