the idea of intelligent luxury strated I guess with LV, Cartier etc undertaking to add High culture to their brand associations with exclusive art shows etc. But at the same time in Japan for example ( that most extreme of mass in depoth luxury markets ) we noted it when we saw people , ordinary people in so many ways, who were real experts on a particular luxury brand, product, stitching style etc. You know something is happening when you hear an ordinary, not particularly high middle class housewife, saying that she collects bags not by brand or designer but by the person who designed a particulat stitch used on inner linings. Or when the iphone was launched that people in focus groups were talking not of Steve J but of the design team and why they used a particular curve on the corners of the device.

so your note struck a chord. what I am seeing from my Tokyo based, asia centric view is that luxury never slipped away .. it just keeps getting deeper. Luv to swap stories on this some time