According to Dior president and chief executive officer Sidney Toledano, the crisis will only speed up a trend the French firm already spied: a widening gulf between ultraluxury players and also-rans.

“What we have done the last two years is consolidate our position at the summit of the luxury pyramid,” Toledano said. “It was the right choice. You either choose to be at the top, or down.”

Dior was prescient in another way: In marking its 60th anniversary last year, the fashion house and its couturier, John Galliano, tuned into the house’s codes — from the famous “bar” jacket to the cane-work print — and turned up the volume on its heritage via products and advertising. In the midst of a glut of “It” bags and shoes, “we were foreseeing that the customer might be saturated with the offer, and that they would at one point return to the strong players,” Toledano said in an interview in Dior’s stately gray offices on the Avenue Montaigne. “I think the crisis will accelerate this momentum.”

“In a time of uncertainty, it is a time for decisiveness and for conviction. It is the time to turn to brands you know and can trust,” Galliano agreed.

Toledano declined to divulge figures, but said the more luxurious store concept and upscale product offer has boosted the company’s “average basket” and that Dior has gained market share in handbags priced over 1,000 euros, or $1,250 at current exchange.

In May, the house will shoot a second batch of ads for the Lady Dior handbag featuring Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard, depicted in the first episode clutching the lace-like metallic grid of the Eiffel Tower, the purse slung on her arm etched with a similar pattern. (Also coming out soon on Dior’s Web site is a mini-movie with Cotillard devoted to the making of the campaign.)

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According to a European source, the tuxedo the French first lady wears in promotional images for her new album, which came out in France Friday, July 11, is by Dior Homme designer Kris Van Assche, complete with a butterfly detail on the lapel straight from his fall/winter runway.
There’s been a frenzy around the former model’s latest record, titled “Comme si de rien n’était” (”As if nothing had happened”), and reviews have largely been good — with a few frosty exceptions.

British newspaper The Times dryly noted that it “may be the best ever made by the wife of a head of state.”

by vivremagazineonline