New paths of luxury

Luxury represents an extremely important economic, employment, skills, and image value, especially for countries such as Italy and France, covering numerous industries and product categories, and for Switzerland in terms of watchmaking. These countries represent the absolute majority of the world's luxury brands. In particular, according to Deloitte, Italy is the world leader in the number of companies and brands in the top 100 luxury companies. The economic and employment value of this supremacy is obvious; perhaps less obvious, but equally important, is the value of the skills accumulated over time and that of the country's image. The first relates to the skills and capabilities involved in the creation and production of luxury goods, which are not easily transferable to other economies and are therefore the heritage of the places where these skills were born and consolidated. The creation and production of luxury goods requires high skills at all levels of business organization, as strategy, marketing, design, manufacture, distribution, customer service. They come from a tradition that has grown over time and are part of a specific cultural history that cannot be replicated. This type of production of goods and services therefore represents a heritage that is difficult to imitate, with a capacity for design, implementation and development that is worthy of protection. For example, the major French luxury companies keep most of their production in Italy precisely because they are rooted in the culture of specific localities, such as Tuscany, Veneto, Marche, each with its own specific characteristics. As a result, the image effect on the value of the country of origin is extremely important, since the visibility of luxury brands is high and the perceived value and quality of these productions is very high, giving the country of origin a dimension of excellence. This image creates a positive halo effect for all products with the same COO. It is enough to remember how much Champagne generates the attraction of French wines or luxury houses on Italian fashion and design.