hello and welcome if you're new to my channel
and if you're a subscriber a warm welcome back this video is one of two reaction videos i
have recorded this week they're very similar the first was a reaction to Sophie Shohet's
video which i will include at the end of this video the second which is this one is a
reaction to a video recorded by the chic maven and the video is entitled is social media ruining
fashion how social brands oh how luxury brands are becoming basic it's a topic that i'm incredibly
passionate about especially when you delve below the brands and you look at the workings
of the industry the psychology of consumers and i thought instead of typing a whole
missive in her comment section why not respond to a few of the snippets in the hope of
starting a conversation and just getting viewers to be a little more conscious and possibly change
their consumption of luxury i'm Anesu Sagonda and i produce educational luxury content for anyone
after the finer things whether you're young and starting out in life and wanting to reap the
benefits of buying quality from the get-go or you're new to money and wanting to learn how to
navigate the terrain or you're into luxury but you want to focus more on quality under the radar
brands then my content is geared towards you the first few minutes of your video had
quite a few points i wanted to touch on but i'm going to condense them and create two
different sections the first bit is focused on um the statement you made about social media
making certain items look basic they're buying it to be seen eventually now when you wear them
you're being called basic i think that is only on social media on online and not in real life um
the luxury market as a whole is relatively young and the majority of consumers within the space
are very much at their first time purchases so people love a story people want to be able to talk
about how they got their luxury item for example the Birkin is a proven success in terms of a video
idea now you're basic for carrying any of those items it's even to the point where even the Birkin
everybody wants to hear how you got your book in the hoops you had to jump through the lengths
you went to how much money you had to spend and it's an idea that'll get you views it'll also
get you subscribers and so people are typically like sheep they will follow something that works
why try and fix something if it ain't broke and they know they're going to get the view so
social media becomes flooded with the same ideas going over the same things and it makes certain
things look like there's just so many of them it's basic everyone has it but in real life that is not
the case i'm based in London and you will only see certain luxury items a lot of what you mentioned
in certain areas think for example Harrods Selfridges Liberty's of London some of the big
luxury department stores you will see consumers out and about shopping dining in restaurants
in the luxury department stores with those bags Harrods is in one of the most affluent parts of
london an area with some of the most expensive real estate globally incredibly incredibly
affluent area that has a lot of these bags out and about in the gym restaurants people shopping
but once you move away from that you hardly see any of the said luxury items and even when i'm in
the us in New York i see the luxury items in sacks i see them in berghof goodman's but once i'm out
and about walking around Manhattan in in fairly affluent areas you don't see a lot of the luxury
items maybe in one every 200 people i see and it may not even be the big brands like Chanel for
example or Hermès but it's more your mid-tier luxury brands and then also going on to your point about
even teenagers young people having the bags there are a lot of brands that thrive from creating
dupes and some that just create pure fakes i was in South Africa recently and i was
in the mall and i saw some of the most impressive copies of Chanel classic flaps Louis
Vuitton bags and various Christian Dior bags they were fantastic to look at they looked exactly like
the real mccoy but it was only when you delved in and looked at the bag in detail you realise that
actually this isn't there's no chance i mean this is a bag retailing for 20 30 40 000 pounds the
equivalent of that but they were very good copies and it takes a lot for someone to actually look
at someone's bag and really scrutinize it so social media is making certain my items basic
but in real life that is not the case one of the reasons people buy luxury handbags is
for the status which is a reason that really doesn't matter at its core luxury is about an
identity and people buy luxury items because they want to identify with whatever that luxury
brand stands for whether it makes them feel good complete it makes them the envy of their reference
group whether it's their friends their family their colleagues they buy it because they want
to be associated with whatever feelings or hype go with that brand and you have a lot of your
big hip-hop artists Jay-Z Nicki Minaj who have rapped about Christian Louboutin for example the
red bottoms and people buy them in droves because they want to be the envy they want people to
look at them and think wow they can afford that they've got they've they've arrived they're
living their life and i say fair play to brands like Christian Louboutin Chanel Louis Vuitton
for example who create these iconic products use the slickest marketing sell them at very
high prices and people buy them they buy into the exclusivity and their parent lifestyle that goes
with them but i think youtubers like you whose content i really enjoy watching it's your duty
of care to keep pushing the message and to get more and more and more people on board pushing the
message about buying quality buying items you can wear again and again they stand the test of time
going for timeless pieces and just making people appreciate or help them evolve their taste over
time and go beyond the hype but buy items that are truly well made in terms of the quality
of the materials used and the craftsmanship i'm going to just go into the price increases
like luxury items have gotten so expensive with all these price increases that it has just become
ridiculous like there is a marketing term called brand equity and brand equity represents the value
of the brand it's the premium that can be added on top of what you started off with that you know
for prices are going up because raw materials are going up labour is going up a number of other
variables are going up the overheads of the fracture where the bags are being made those
are all going up and they're added to the price but you get as i mentioned a concept called
Brand Equity and it very much looks at the value of the brand it's the difference between a branded
product versus an unbranded product the generic and when you consider for example
the consumer perception of the brand the quality of the products their awareness their
association their loyalty to the brand for example if all those variables are high then it is
said the brand has bran high brand equity and therefore it can add a higher value premium to
the price of the product and therefore can dictate a higher price because the consumer is getting a
lot of variables a lot of assets a lot of goodness that come with that product and that's why you
have brands such as chanel hermes dior for example having high prices because they have high
brand equity therefore they're able to add a much higher value premium to the value of their
brand and charge that back to the consumer i guess the day consumers stop having high regard
for those brands is when we'll start to see the prices slowing down maybe they are on social
media they kind of have to combat that in a way like yes they need to raise their prices for all
of the economic reasons but i think they also raised them to kind of combat that over saturation
i think that's a little bit of a factor i agree with your comment about putting prices up for
economic reasons rising costs labour and so forth but brands do not put prices up to stop people
buying the products it's the total opposite companies are here to make money and they will
make money in the most brutal way putting prices up is actually to make you want to buy the
products even more there's this reverse psychology that the more expensive something
is the more people want it and what you'll also find out over time is that sometimes it's not the
people who can comfortably afford the luxury uh products because they are in well-paying jobs or
they are wealthy it's typically people who can't really afford the luxury items they literally
have to beg borrow steal to afford these items and brands put up the prices to create the impression
of exclusivity they create the amazing iconic products that people talk about the lady dior
the Birkin uh the Chanel classic flap for example and they create these amazing products
that people admire they revere combine them with the slickest marketing
selling them at very high prices and it makes these products seem incredibly
exclusive and even more alluring and people buy them because they want to buy into the identity
whatever these brands represent whatever they mean to them people buy into them for that reason
so brands know that with good brand equity they have the the capacity they have uh the good
customer perception to be able to keep putting their prices up because people will keep buying
and they keep doing that and they keep making more and more money and ultimately billions of
dollars in profits as an investment bank so we can get into that that's one reason why people buy
a lot of handbags they buy them as investments but are they really investments i don't think so this
whole concept of buying bags as an investment is it's alien to me i'm of African descent
and when i started buying luxury about 20 25 years ago the intention and i guess
my reference group when i speak to others it was all about you buy items that you use you
wear and enjoy there was never the suggestion you buy something as an investment or you sell it
later when you're bored and it's something that although i've spent the majority of my adult
life in the west i can't seem to get my head around buying things as an investment to me buy
items use them enjoy them make the most of them and i don't think a person even needs 20
30 40 50 bags to me it's a lot i think a person typically needs a careful carefully
curated selection of possibly five handbags depending on your lifestyle a work bag an evening
bag something for going out a gym bag a cocktail bag whatever it is five bags the very best um
the best you can afford and you use them and wear them to death and enjoy the bags i just don't
understand this whole investment concept and it's something i'm going to talk more and more of on my
channel that i'm i'm not a big fan of investments they're better ways to invest your money than
in handbags if you're really serious about it and i'm all about buy the best you can afford and
enjoy those items and just for example handbags buying a beautiful leather bag it's natural and
you watch it develop the patinas it softens and develops that gentle very subtle sheen to me
that is priceless and that's what luxury is about influencers play their part in changing the
dynamic of how people consume fashion i understand that influencers have a job to do their whole
job is to be a walking advertisement to sell products i just feel like the way that it's being
done now it loses its appeal i agree with you influencers have a job to do but i think it's very
easy for youtubers now for influencers to have a channel and just keep saying the same message
wander around the same brands everyone's talking about and that's why i particularly like your
channel Chic Maven and Sophie Shehets because you bring in different brands we need different
brands we need people who are going to make you think differently and i think viewers of
content which i am at times we need to be a little more demanding a little more discerning
about what we watch what we want what we need going for channels like yours where you bring
in more information you make people think you make people become conscious and deliberate about
their purchases and i think what you're doing you are you're on track you're doing the right thing
and i look forward to seeing more and more of your content and hopefully more conversations
going on with other like-minded channels but i'd love to get your thoughts on the content i've
created for this the greater topics that were being discussed as always thank you for watching
and i look forward to seeing you again soon
