Lovers of Luxury
The Nature of Luxury:
A Passion for Clean Sustainable Growth.
Happy Earth Day Lovers of Luxury! April is one of my favorite months, and not just because we make the transition into Taurus season. Rather because April also coincides with Earth month, a time to celebrate all things created by Mother Nature; i.e. just about everything you see, touch, and experience around you. But sometimes, I feel a little bit out of sorts when I consider my love of luxury, and caring for the planet. There seems to be a major disconnect in conscious consumerism and over consumption that makes me wonder how fast fashion could ever be in alignment with eco-conscious practices that support the health and wellness of our oceans, rainforests, arctic glaciers, and the very air we breath.
These are questions that any true fashionista must quarrel with, and I too had to ask myself what luxury means to me, and at what cost? And the only true answer that came to me as though a quiet whisper in my heart, mind, and soul is… Passion.
A Passion for creating something truly unique outside of the everyday; something extraordinary beyond the mundane. It represents quality, care, values, ethics, time, and commitment to the craft one has aspired. A commitment to a shared goal to honor the heritage of the house — a time-honored legacy that transcends time to touch the lives of those who appreciate the finer things in life.
It’s true that luxury is indeed a lifestyle, as it has the capacity to be intergrated into one’s everyday reality. An ecoystem of items that have been curated as a representation of identity, personality, and style.
But I don’t believe that one needs to be rich, famous, or even born into great wealth to experience luxury. Rather one needs to be committed to the idea of luxury. The mindset that brings the reality of true luxury into existence.
And really, that’s not so hard once you understand the nature of luxury, and are willing to step outside your comfort zone. So let’s do just that. Let’s take a journey into the world of luxury so we can demystify it as something soley reserved for the wealthy, rich, and famous. Luxury is for you too.
As the consumer has grown more environmentally conscious over the past couple decades, luxury brands have responded to the demand for more eco-conscious methods of environmental sustainability within the creation of their most beloved products. Many, if not most, luxury designer brands have committed to reducing their carbon footprint and meeting the global challenges of tomorrow through controlled methods of production, recycling intitiatives to reduce waste in packaging, and to repurposing unsold products in newer collections.
Purveyors of Luxury commit themselves to the highest standards of ethics and values when it comes to the methods of production, sourcing raw materials from growers who share their commitments to sustainable growth. Every element of sustainable production is taken into the greatest consideration, ensuring that even the smallest individual component to the product is being generated from the absolute finest of care and respect for the environment. Whether that be the May Roses and Grandiflorum Jasmine harvested from the Grasse in the south of France, or exceptional cuir leather tanned in Italy, connoisseurs of luxury are active participants in supporting a global network of farmers, gardeners, and horticulturalists who have taken exceptional pride in protecting the earth as stewards of the land.
One need only to look to the LVMH network to appreciate and aspire to the collective work their Maisons are committed to in global practice. As the undisputed leader of luxury goods and services, LVMH has spearheaded the movement towards social and environmental responsibility with their LIFE 360 program, an environmental performance roadmap prioritizing sustainable development as a critical component of their strategic business plans into 2030. Since 2016, LVMH Initiatives for the Environment (LIFE) has focused their energy around four key pillars in their alliance of nature and creativity, working in partnership with UNESCO and Canopy to protect biodiversity, fight back against climate change, develop a more sustainable circular economy, and increase transparency around product manufacturing.
Guerlain has been leading the way in conservation through Women for Bees program, their partnership with UNESCO to protect bee populations from declining. Celebrated actor, activist, and advocate Angelina Jolie serves as the Godmother of the program, sharing her passion for female entrepreneurship, beekeeping, and environmental preservation.
“Guerlain has a genuine commitment to the environment, sustainable development and the communities they work with. That’s what brought us together, and ‘Women for Bees’ is a wonderful extension of that.”
Likewise, the House of Christian Dior invites their client to “Dream in Green” through their ecosustainable praxis of environmental excellence, committing to the slowing of climate change through practical methods of creative circularity. Their mission has been realized through regenerative cultivation of biodiverse agricultural ecosystems, textile recycling of unused materials, and eco-design manufacturing within their packaging and visual merchandsing.
In 2021, Dior earned the Positive Luxury Butterfly Mark in verification of their commitment and authenticity of their sustainability strategy, undergoing rigourous environmental certification processes to reducing their carbon emmissions by 46% through the renovation of renewable energy efficient boutiques, leaving only beauty as their greatest legacy.
Within that similar vision, YSL Beauty partnerered with global NGO, Re:Wild, to protect bidioverse climates and habitats with a shared commitment of restoring 100,000 hectares, nearly 250,000 acres, by 2030. With a common goal to Rewild our Earth, they have created programs in Madagascar, Haiti, Morocco, and Indonesia to preserve, restore, rehabilitate, and re-establish precious ecosystems by empowering local communities within biodiverse habitat zones.
To this end, luxury has taken great strides to ensure transparency throughout their methods of procuring raw materials through ethical labor practices. This means that those who are developing the product — from seed to stitch — are apprecaited and well taken care of, supported through humane living and work conditions, and paid generously for their time, skill, and labor. Luxury products are never manufactured massive factories or industrial workshops in violation of questionable human rights abuses. Rather, they pride themeslves in creating unique high end commodities in state of the art specialized workshops, ateliers, and studios where artists, creators, and designers alike are provided with every tool they may need to produce magic at every level of the creative process.
As a consumer of luxury, I feel confident in the hands that sew, darn, and hem my clothing are true craftspeople, skilled artisans trained in the art of their craft from years of apprenticeships, professional development, and the exponential finesse of time and experience. They are gifted artists themeslves, masters of their trade who have dedicated themselves to the art of fashion and design, and the spirit of savoir-faire.
Furthermore, when we purchase luxury products that require a greater spending commitment than say the fast fashion mall scene, we are investing in statement pieces that are meant to last a lifetime. Luxury transgresses the ephermeral. It is not for wearing once or twice, trashing, and throwing out with yesterday’s garbage, destined to become part of massive landfill releasing toxic methane gasses. No, these are precious items constructed to stand the test of time, valuable expenses that will ultimately become collectable vintage items sought out by to the next generation to love, cherish, and adore. Celebrated heritage pieces will never go out of style because they were invisioned as timeless — elegant, practical, and strong as hell when well maintained, nurtured, and preserved with proper care.
It is for these reasons and more that I adore the art of luxury. It appears so easy and simple on the surface, but it represents an interconnected ecosystem of moving parts that all work in unision perfectily distilled down into one beautiful final object. Whether worn on the body, adorned in jewels, or placed within the home, when you own luxury, you hold the world in your hands.
