The Bling Dynasty: Why the Reign of Chinese Luxury Shoppers Has Only Just Begun

Chapter 8 Pop Culture, Value for Money and Globalisation

‘Nowadays, people know the price of everything and the value of nothing'.

— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

In this chapter, we look at how Americans are becoming more value conscious than Chinese and how luxury-obsessed Chinese are becoming more American. (See Figure 8.1.)

Figure 8.1 Value versus Premium

Globalisation and Status Seeking in Everyday Life

The world is getting smaller.

I realized this pretty quickly when I started travelling with my kids. Unlike when I was a kid, different places in the world have become quite similar wherever we would go. French people now speak proper English. At least most of them do. They even have started going to Starbucks instead of the traditional cafés.

Queenstown, New Zealand, the young hip extreme sports and merino wool capital of the world, has a Louis Vuitton store in town filled with Chinese tourists. Michelin-star chefs are becoming ubiquitous whether you are in Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York or London. The world of store chains and this impression that everywhere you go, retail looks the same, has become a given for the new generation.

All of this is quite depressing. And with work taking me to many places, it was common to wake up jet-lagged and wonder where I was, given everything looked the same.

The world has become very small indeed, and consumers around the planet ...