Handmade luxuries
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Back to the roots or a redefinition of elegance? In this exclusive excerpt, Roland Berger's executive magazine takes a closer look at what makes handcrafted goods the ultimate luxury in the 21st century.
Each edge accurate down to the millimeter. Every seam in the right spot. A suit by Italian tailor Kiton is a precision product that accompanies its owners down through the years, elegant and absolutely unobtrusive. “You put it on and forget about it,” says Ciro Paone, padrone of the company. The ultimate clothing experience: A product so well made that the owner forgets that he is wearing it.
It is not expensive machines that create this kind of a fit; rather, Kiton relies on 450 exceptionally well-trained tailors. Fifty hours of hand-sewing are invested in the pants and jacket. A master tailor stitches for more than a week to produce the perfect suit, including a breast pocket that curves slightly outward: this is so that the dress handkerchief slides smoothly into place. And it does just that in more and more Kiton suits—business is booming at the elegant tailor firm in southern Italy, which has posted double-digit growth in recent years.
Kiton is not the only manufacturer to report an upswing in demand. Handcrafted goods are the ultimate luxury in our consumer society of the 21st century. Luxury no longer means just owning “more.” In every country and industry around the world, buyers now seek the feeling of having something completely individual to hold in their hands, to eat or otherwise consume: in a word, handmade goods.
This also stems from a yearning for identity. Identity comes from the feeling of holding a piece of history in your hands together with that unique product: the history of treasures created by hand using expertise learned, practiced and perfected over decades. As is the case at Kiton: Paone’s fabric suppliers have been in Naples for nine generations—the company head recently passed the business down to his heirs.
Each edge accurate down to the millimeter. Every seam in the right spot. A suit by Italian tailor Kiton is a precision product that accompanies its owners down through the years, elegant and absolutely unobtrusive. “You put it on and forget about it,” says Ciro Paone, padrone of the company. The ultimate clothing experience: A product so well made that the owner forgets that he is wearing it.
It is not expensive machines that create this kind of a fit; rather, Kiton relies on 450 exceptionally well-trained tailors. Fifty hours of hand-sewing are invested in the pants and jacket. A master tailor stitches for more than a week to produce the perfect suit, including a breast pocket that curves slightly outward: this is so that the dress handkerchief slides smoothly into place. And it does just that in more and more Kiton suits—business is booming at the elegant tailor firm in southern Italy, which has posted double-digit growth in recent years.
Kiton is not the only manufacturer to report an upswing in demand. Handcrafted goods are the ultimate luxury in our consumer society of the 21st century. Luxury no longer means just owning “more.” In every country and industry around the world, buyers now seek the feeling of having something completely individual to hold in their hands, to eat or otherwise consume: in a word, handmade goods.
This also stems from a yearning for identity. Identity comes from the feeling of holding a piece of history in your hands together with that unique product: the history of treasures created by hand using expertise learned, practiced and perfected over decades. As is the case at Kiton: Paone’s fabric suppliers have been in Naples for nine generations—the company head recently passed the business down to his heirs.
“Il meglio del meglio più uno”—the best of the best plus one—is the company motto that Paone passed on to his heirs. This luxury label creates what may well be the most expensive men’s collection in the world.
Paone considers himself the “provider of a Rolls-Royce to be worn.” It comes at a price: minimum €4000 for pinstripes in cashmere quality, and from there the price can only go up, the sky’s the limit.
Customers can have their measurements taken in London or another metropolis around the world, but Kiton only produces suits in Italy. Each tailor is trained extensively in the classic Kiton style. And the company has garnered a real fan club over time, including members of the British royal family and Robert Redford.
Paone considers himself the “provider of a Rolls-Royce to be worn.” It comes at a price: minimum €4000 for pinstripes in cashmere quality, and from there the price can only go up, the sky’s the limit.
Customers can have their measurements taken in London or another metropolis around the world, but Kiton only produces suits in Italy. Each tailor is trained extensively in the classic Kiton style. And the company has garnered a real fan club over time, including members of the British royal family and Robert Redford.
Suits that are (almost) forever
Kiton’s handcrafted line and unyielding commitment to quality has its finger on the pulse, according to industry expert Kenneth Hirst. The renowned designer sees a lasting trend in the longing for “individual chic, and traditional quality work.” Thomas Huber, author of the study “Zukunft des Handwerks” (“The Future of Skilled Crafts”), says: “In handmade crafts for consumers, high quality and durable products combined with real service are essential.” Customers have become more demanding. “They want highly individualized services and products that they can count on long-term,” he adds.
This development defies expectations of consumerism in the internet age, where disposable goods seem the norm. The Internet is even driving up demand for handmade goods because it makes it easier for fans to get their hands on bespoke products. Another business benefiting from this trend is Etsy, a small online marketplace based in Brooklyn. Etsy specializes in products made by hand—an eBay for handcrafted goods. The New Yorkers already have 300,000 registered users.
To have and to hold
Demand for handmade products is giving rise to regular clusters of handicraft around the world. One example: the watch industry at Glashuette in Germany’s state of Saxony. Here, a variety of manufacturers create treasures for the wrist. It isn’t surprising that watches have become the showpieces of individual consumerism. As a product, the watch stands for ultimate precision—and at the same time for something scarce in today’s hectic world: time. “The mechanical clock fascinates us increasingly as a philosophical object of time,” believes Frank Mueller, head of the Glashuette Original manufactory, a company of the Swatch Group. The idea of timelessness and centuries of tradition strikes a counterpoint in a world “shaped by the digital, global, nanotechnological and rational.” According to Mueller, there is a reason that watches are passed down through the generations.
Values and value in changing times
Buyers enjoy the value of eternity. And maybe they also think they are buying a clear conscience. Manufacturing under questionable labor conditions, employing cheap raw materials—all this is worlds away from the philosophy of producing quality goods by hand.
Kirstin Suess, a researcher from the University of Cincinnati has also proven that investing in rare goods can equal business acumen. She compared notional investments of $5,000 each in savings bonds, stocks and violins and calculated their growth from 1960 to 1996. Her findings: Handcrafted items are worth their money. The savings bonds would have made a maximum of $56,000; the stocks $64,000. In comparison, the value of a Stradivarius violin would have increased to $242,000 in 36 years.
A perfect suit, a unique timepiece, a coveted instrument: Such luxury goods harbor tradition, a lengthy apprenticeship and exclusive “expertise gained from experience,” as Fritz Boehle, a professor at the Institute for Social Science Research in Munich, calls it. This expertise and knowledge ensures that people become completely absorbed in their handiwork. It gives them the feeling of performing valuable work, because it can only be done by someone with these expert skills. Boehle says that such skilled workers can tell, just by listening to a “faint rattle from a machine, what is wrong with it, because they have known the machine for so long.
”They feel it, just as the master tailors at Kiton instinctively know the contouring of an individual fabric, and others can find the tiniest defect in the mechanics of a timepiece. The knowledge of these skilled craftspeople charges the products with emotion, while improving the sheer quality at the same time.
If you have questions or comments regarding this, or any other article, please don't hesitate to contact us:
Kiton’s handcrafted line and unyielding commitment to quality has its finger on the pulse, according to industry expert Kenneth Hirst. The renowned designer sees a lasting trend in the longing for “individual chic, and traditional quality work.” Thomas Huber, author of the study “Zukunft des Handwerks” (“The Future of Skilled Crafts”), says: “In handmade crafts for consumers, high quality and durable products combined with real service are essential.” Customers have become more demanding. “They want highly individualized services and products that they can count on long-term,” he adds.
This development defies expectations of consumerism in the internet age, where disposable goods seem the norm. The Internet is even driving up demand for handmade goods because it makes it easier for fans to get their hands on bespoke products. Another business benefiting from this trend is Etsy, a small online marketplace based in Brooklyn. Etsy specializes in products made by hand—an eBay for handcrafted goods. The New Yorkers already have 300,000 registered users.
To have and to hold
Demand for handmade products is giving rise to regular clusters of handicraft around the world. One example: the watch industry at Glashuette in Germany’s state of Saxony. Here, a variety of manufacturers create treasures for the wrist. It isn’t surprising that watches have become the showpieces of individual consumerism. As a product, the watch stands for ultimate precision—and at the same time for something scarce in today’s hectic world: time. “The mechanical clock fascinates us increasingly as a philosophical object of time,” believes Frank Mueller, head of the Glashuette Original manufactory, a company of the Swatch Group. The idea of timelessness and centuries of tradition strikes a counterpoint in a world “shaped by the digital, global, nanotechnological and rational.” According to Mueller, there is a reason that watches are passed down through the generations.
Values and value in changing times
Buyers enjoy the value of eternity. And maybe they also think they are buying a clear conscience. Manufacturing under questionable labor conditions, employing cheap raw materials—all this is worlds away from the philosophy of producing quality goods by hand.
Kirstin Suess, a researcher from the University of Cincinnati has also proven that investing in rare goods can equal business acumen. She compared notional investments of $5,000 each in savings bonds, stocks and violins and calculated their growth from 1960 to 1996. Her findings: Handcrafted items are worth their money. The savings bonds would have made a maximum of $56,000; the stocks $64,000. In comparison, the value of a Stradivarius violin would have increased to $242,000 in 36 years.
A perfect suit, a unique timepiece, a coveted instrument: Such luxury goods harbor tradition, a lengthy apprenticeship and exclusive “expertise gained from experience,” as Fritz Boehle, a professor at the Institute for Social Science Research in Munich, calls it. This expertise and knowledge ensures that people become completely absorbed in their handiwork. It gives them the feeling of performing valuable work, because it can only be done by someone with these expert skills. Boehle says that such skilled workers can tell, just by listening to a “faint rattle from a machine, what is wrong with it, because they have known the machine for so long.
”They feel it, just as the master tailors at Kiton instinctively know the contouring of an individual fabric, and others can find the tiniest defect in the mechanics of a timepiece. The knowledge of these skilled craftspeople charges the products with emotion, while improving the sheer quality at the same time.
If you have questions or comments regarding this, or any other article, please don't hesitate to contact us:
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