Luxury World: The Past, Present and Future of Luxury Brands

by Tungate, Mark

  Meanwhile, Monsieur Pinault’s advisor is Philippe Ségalot, a colourful figure who features prominently in Sarah Thornton’s entertaining (2008) book Seven Days in the Art World. Thornton reveals that Ségalot did not formally study art – in fact he started out in the marketing department of L’Oréal in Paris. ‘It is not by chance I went from cosmetics to art,’ Ségalot tells the author. ‘We are dealing with beauty here. We are dealing in things that are unnecessary, dealing with abstractions.’ He adds that, of all the people he advises, Pinault is his favourite collector. ‘He has a true passion for contemporary art and a unique instinct for masterworks. He understands quality. He has an incredible eye.’

  Nevertheless, it seems that even the most passionate collectors like to get a second opinion before making an investment.

  For an outsider, it’s difficult to tell whether the collectors are attracted to the investment or the art. Are they simply looking for impressive trinkets to fill their homes? Do they get a thrill from buying and selling artworks – just as they do from playing the stock market? Do they enjoy the social aspect of rubbing shoulders with their own kind at auctions and art fairs? Or are they seeking immortality through collections housed in museums that bear their names? Commenting in the Bloomberg article mentioned above, art historian Didier Rykner said: ‘If French billionaires want to make museums, even if it’s for their own glory, I’m all in favour, especially if the public benefits.’

  But there is probably more to it than that. One art world insider told me that by comparing the collections of Pinault and Arnault, he could tell that they had specific and informed tastes. ‘They are genuinely clued-up about the art world,’ he insisted. ‘They often find themselves at social events surrounded by people who know a great deal about art. If they could not hold their own, they would soon be exposed. These men and others like them are not casual collectors: I am convinced that they care about contemporary art.’

  BRANDED ARTISTS

  Not so long ago, shortly before Christmas, I found myself enjoying a meal at a trendy London restaurant called St Alban. The large, streamlined space was decorated like a fantasy 1970s airport lounge, complete with colourful sofas. But the most eye-catching thing in this already striking room was the large artwork on the back wall. Had I not been aware of its provenance, I might have assumed that it was a 20-foot-long stained glass window in which the predominant colours were turquoise and mauve. But I knew for a fact that the kaleidoscopic picture was made of hundreds of real butterfly wings. Despite its cruelty, I found the work breathtakingly beautiful. It was created by Damien Hirst, one of the most successful branded artists of all time.

  When I asked a waiter about the piece, he told me that it was called ‘Jubilation’ and that it was on loan from Hirst to the restaurant’s owners, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King. The artist had been happy to get involved in the project because his former art school tutor, Michael Craig-Martin, had designed the restaurant’s interior. The waiter added that, only a few months before my visit, a customer had offered £1.5 million for the work. The inquiry was forwarded to Hirst, who declined to sell. The story quickly found its way into the press. It is exactly the sort of tale of metropolitan glamour that has made Damien Hirst such a powerful brand.

  There are a number of ways in which an emerging artist can become a brand. One is to be bought by a branded collector like Charles Saatchi, which legitimizes your work. Another is to attract media coverage that adds value to your brand. And yet another is to gain marketing support from a branded dealer or gallery owner. Perhaps the ultimate is to have your work acquired by a museum: dealers use the term ‘museum quality’ to describe particularly expensive pieces.

  Museums partly drove the contemporary art boom: more than 100 new museums have opened in the past 25 years, all hungrily buying up stocks of the best-known names. And with a new generation of wealthy collectors coming onto the market during roughly the same period, demand outstripped supply.

  ‘Every year art schools spit out thousands of groomed-for-success graduates, whose job it is to supply galleries and auction houses with desirable retail,’ explains an article in the International Herald Tribune. ‘They are backed up by cadres of public relations specialists – critics, curators, editors, publishers and career theorists – who provide updates on what desirable means’ (‘Does the downturn carry a silver lining for the art world?’, 18 February 2009).

  Even those with only a vague knowledge of the contemporary art scene are aware of some its best-known brands. The late Andy Warhol felt that his own celebrity was an art form. Jeff Koons – who once worked as a Wall Street commodities broker – gained notoriety with, among other things, a series of sculptures and paintings featuring him-self and his wife, the former porn star known as La Cicciolina, in various sexual positions. (Don Thompson observes that Koons once defined his target market as ‘really rich collectors’. The artist also excels at coming up with catchy slogans, such as ‘abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class’.) Tracey Emin has a ‘sexy bad girl’ brand positioning and once turned her own unmade bed into art.

  But with his combination of dark humour, marketing savvy, industry clout and sheer chutzpah, Damien Hirst towers over them all. His work sells for far more than the sums Andy Warhol was able to command in his lifetime.

  Born in Bristol and brought up in Leeds, Hirst attended Goldsmiths College in London. Part of the University of London, Goldsmiths prides itself on looking at subjects in ‘creative and unconventional ways’ (www.gold.ac.uk). Graduates include the artist Bridget Riley and the godfather of punk, Malcolm McLaren. In 1988, while still at Goldsmiths, Hirst exhibited the work of 17 of the school’s art students alongside some of his own pieces in a now-legendary show called Freeze.

  Hirst already knew how to turn art into an event. Don Thompson writes: ‘Freeze was Hirst’s personal creation. He chose the art, commissioned a catalogue and planned the opening party,’ in an abandoned building in London’s docklands. The show did not escape the attention of Charles Saatchi, who would soon endorse and package the Young British Art movement. In 1990 Hirst curated another exhibition, called Gambler – and Saatchi dropped by. The collector bought a Hirst installation: a piece called ‘A Thousand Years’, in which newly hatched flies were killed by a fizzing electric zapper as they tried to get to a rotting cow’s head on the other side of a glass partition. (Hirst says his obsession with death sprang partly from a work placement in a mortuary.)

  The following year, according to Thompson, Saatchi commissioned ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ – the shark. (It is said to have cost £50,000 and was sold just under 15 years later for £6.5 million.) Also in 1991, Hirst met another person who was to have a significant impact on his career: Jay Jopling, founder of the influential White Cube gallery. Originally located on the traditional gallery circuit in Duke Street St James’s, the space moved in 2000 to Hoxton Square in the East End, contributing to the formerly down-at-heel area’s regeneration as one of the hippest quarters of the city.

  Hirst’s shark is one of a series of meditations on death, along with embalmed sheep and severed cows in glass cabinets. The ‘butterfly paintings’ address a similar theme, as do the ‘cabinet’ works, which are medicine cabinets filled with bottles of pills or surgical tools. (Hirst and some friends briefly ran a London restaurant called Pharmacy – its fixtures and fittings were later auctioned off as works of art.) All these have attracted disapproving newspaper articles, as have Hirst’s ‘spot paintings’. These multicoloured dots on white backgrounds would be entirely inoffensive were it not for the means of their production. Hirst doesn’t paint them – his assistants do. Just like Rubens in 17th century Antwerp, Hirst now has a ‘school’ to help him produce his artworks. In fact, he has four production facilities – two in London and two in Gloucestershire – and around 180 full-time members of staff. Although he directs operations, he happily admits that he does not apply the paint. Once y
ou accept that Hirst is a global luxury brand, however, this seems perfectly reasonable. Would you be shocked to learn that Miuccia Prada had never laid a finger on your suit?

  Hirst is also proof that a powerful brand name affords some protection against recession. On 15 September 2008, with newspapers full of doom-laden reports about the credit crunch, Sotheby’s kicked off a two-day auction of 223 brand new works by Damien Hirst. This was unusual because pieces sold at auction are usually sourced from existing collections rather than fresh from an artist’s atelier. Hirst treated the sale itself like a work of art, giving it one of the evocative names he is so good at dreaming up: ‘Beautiful Inside My Head, Forever’. The most striking piece was ‘The Golden Calf’, a bull preserved in formaldehyde, with golden hooves, golden horns and a jaunty golden crown. Staging an auction of new work rather than going through a dealer – especially at a time like this – was an act of sheer bravado. If the work failed to sell for a decent sum, Hirst’s reputation would have been damaged. Predictably, the media bought in to the suspense and the sale generated headlines worldwide.

  The auction was a triumph. It raised US $198 million, simultaneously defying the economic gloom, giving Hirst’s critics the gilded finger and breaking a record. The previous record for an auction of works by a single artist at Sotheby’s was US $20 million, set in 1993 by a sale of 88 works by Pablo Picasso. Hirst’s ‘Golden Calf’ alone fetched US $18.5 million. And a preserved tiger shark netted US $17 million, making its distant cousin seem like a minnow in comparison. ‘The market is bigger than anyone knows,’ commented Hirst. His brand had emerged not just untarnished, but with a new gleam of invincibility.

  GALLERIES, AUCTIONS AND FAIRS

  Jay Jopling’s White Cube gallery is well named. A typical contemporary art gallery is exactly that: a blank box. ‘This featureless environment,’ writes Don Thompson, ‘is meant to reinforce the idea that what is being viewed is “art” and that galleries are elitist.’

  The Spartan décor is also designed to intimidate casual visitors, as is the buzzer one is invariably required to push in order to gain access. Although this is essentially a retail environment, ‘just looking’ is even less encouraged here than it is in luxury fashion boutiques. There are many similarities, however, including the pretty young women – known as ‘gallerinas’ – who cast an uninterested eye in your direction as you enter. One always fights the urge to quote Edina (played by Jennifer Saunders) in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, who snaps at an aloof gallery assistant: ‘Get over it, darling – this is just a shop.’

  In fact, branded galleries like White Cube and renowned dealers like Mr Jopling – and the art world titan Larry Gagosian on the other side of the pond – are the highest rung on a ladder that begins at the artist’s atelier, where artists are often obliged to stage their first shows. With any luck, they are then discovered by a ‘mainstream dealer’, which gives them access to serious collectors. Only if their work begins selling to branded collectors for elevated prices – and attracting press buzz – do they stand a chance of being lured away by a branded gallery. Most artists remain with mainstream galleries or smaller ‘high street’ galleries – if they even make it that far.

  Very occasionally, galleries become global brands. During my research I came across one such operation in the form of Opera Gallery. In fact, it is an international luxury retail chain. Gilles Dyan opened his first gallery in Singapore in 1994, followed by Paris that same year. It now has additional branches in Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Miami, Monaco, New York, Seoul and Venice – with more due to open at the time of writing, possibly in the Middle East.

  Didier Viltart, the amiable director of the London branch of the gallery, says: ‘Successful art dealers sometimes have galleries in perhaps two or three locations – but it’s pretty unique to find one with a presence in 10 or more cities. We open in places where there is a clear demand from clients. We opened in Singapore because we could see that there were a lot of new collectors in Asia. Now there is a great deal of interest from the Middle East. There are new collectors and also some very talented artists, especially from Iran.’

  The galleries show a mixture of ‘modern and contemporary’ art in spaces with similar grey, black and white colour schemes. As well as emerging contemporary artists, they sell the heavyweights: ‘masters’ whose works are available at Opera galleries around the world include Bonnard, Chagall, Dufy, Matisse, Modigliani, Monet, Picasso, Renoir and Rodin (see www.operagallery.com for the full line-up).

  I wonder aloud what might induce somebody to sell a piece by a legendary artist once they have it in their collection.

  ‘There are almost as many reasons as there are styles of art,’ says Viltart. ‘A collection may come onto the market as the result of a divorce or a death in the family. There might have been a change in the financial circumstances of the owner. Or it may simply be that their tastes are not the same as they were 20 years ago. What you must also understand is that, for some people, collecting is more than a passion – it is a vice. And they may be forced to sell in order to feed their desire to collect art.’

  Modern collectors, says Viltart, tend to be more daring than their counterparts from the 19th and early 20th centuries. ‘It used to be that people would collect a certain style of art – or even a certain artist. But now there is a sort of “cabinet of curiosities” approach. Collectors are not afraid to combine different styles and eras.’

  And carefully chosen art keeps its value. One Russian collector who lost a considerable amount of money on the stock exchange at the end of 2008 was grateful that he had invested in a Picasso a year earlier.

  But where do these artworks come from? And how do clients find out about them? In other words, how does one choose an art dealer?

  ‘We place advertisements in appropriate media like the Financial Times,’ says Viltart. ‘The location of the galleries also helps: we are present in districts known for art galleries. And you must also remember that an art gallery is a very sociable place. We organize gallery openings and charity events so people can come along and meet us. Thanks to our worldwide network, we have many excellent contacts. Clients recommend us to their friends.’

  With a handful of the right connections it is not so difficult to build up a database of wealthy and influential people. Then it is simply a case of sending them smart, attractive invitations on thick card, or glossy exhibition catalogues resembling hefty coffee table books. The Opera Gallery in Monaco, for instance, is in touch with a company that owns many of the hotels and casinos in Monte Carlo (see Chapter 9, ‘Deluxe nomads’). Because of this relationship, the gallery is able to invite the hotel group’s most valued customers to the cocktail evenings it holds every three weeks or so. At events like this, logos and strategically placed catalogues form a subtle but insistent marketing presence. And even if the guests are unlikely to snap up a painting there and then, they might be impressed enough to browse the gallery’s website at their leisure. With a quick click of a mouse, they can ask for more information about any of the paintings displayed on the site.

  Not all of the work on show at Opera Gallery is accessible only to the immensely rich. For an outlay of a few thousand pounds, you might be able to pick up a lovely vintage print by a Japanese photographer, for example. ‘You don’t fall in love with something because of its price,’ Viltart points out. ‘The most sympathetic collectors buy not to invest, but for their own pleasure.’

  And if funds are short, some galleries may allow you to pay in instalments. You won’t receive the artwork until the last payment has been made, however. Now that money is tighter everywhere, this arrangement may become more common. Viltart says: ‘We are still doing plenty of business, but there are fewer traders than before. What you’re seeing now are the genuine collectors – those for whom art is a passion rather than a business.’

  Dealers in the gallery district of the Marais in Paris confirm that collectors continued to buy as the recession took h
old. In fact, the more accessible galleries benefited from the downturn, because seriously addicted collectors fed their need by investing in smaller pieces by little-known artists, costing anything from €500 to €15,000.

  My last question turns out to be the most controversial one: if you have a painting to sell, why do so through a gallery rather than at an auction? ‘Partly because if you go to an auction house you have to wait until the date of the next auction,’ Viltart says. ‘And while an auction is designed to drive up the price, the seller pays more commission: there’s a big difference between the hammer price and the amount that finds its way into your pocket. There is also the little matter of discretion: you may not want the world to know that you are selling your painting.’

  In fact auction houses can arrange ‘private’ sales, involving a limited number of potential buyers – but that is beside the point. It transpires that there is intense rivalry between galleries and auction houses. The advantage of galleries is that they have built up personal relationships with artists and clients (Viltart tells me he has visited the homes of 95 per cent of his clients and considers many of them friends). Galleries nurture artists’ careers and act as educators for collectors. Auction houses, on the other hand, excel at creating buzz around sales. Websites, full-page advertisements in art magazines and newspapers, stunning catalogues sent in advance to key collectors, expertly hung pre-sale shows, cocktail parties and private viewing sessions for the happy few – these are some of the weapons in their arsenal. They have also developed bespoke services for their ‘mega clients’ and think nothing of hopping on a plane with a picture in order to give a potential buyer a one-to-one viewing. And then there is the suspenseful sale itself, a complex piece of theatre designed to ensure that the work sells for the highest possible price.

  Dealers – or ‘gallerists’, as they prefer – look upon all this with distaste, viewing big auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s as behemoths who are out to crush the smaller, more humane galleries. It does not help that the borders are blurring. As we’ve seen, auction houses are beginning to sell new works rather than concentrating on the ‘secondary’ market of pieces that have already been owned. They are also starting to buy art galleries: Christie’s is the owner of Haunch of Venison, a gallery with branches in London and New York.