Decoding The Logic Behind LV and Dior Stage Shows In Hong Kong | Analysis

First Louis Vuitton, then Dior, luxury brands are falling in love with Hong Kong again. It’s no secret that when Louis Vuitton put on a show alongside the city’s landmark the Avenue of Stars last Thursday, Hong Kong drew back the industry’s most attention after four years of silence.

But why? When two French giant flagships under the world’s biggest luxury group LVMH, both bet big in China’s financial hub(once Asia’s luxury hub), it must have some agenda to set and logic to find.

The significant and the most obvious one is the China factor. Even during the pandemic, Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH invested a lot in the Chinese market. Right before the show started, Pharrell Williams, the creative mind behind the brand opened his official Xiaohongshu account (China’s biggest lifestyle content platform) to promote the show. His first post now reached over 7,000 likes.

As the CEO Pietro Beccari and the Creative Director Pharrell Williams both put it, Hong Kong is a special place that links to China. During the show, celebrities and VIP clients from mainland China, Hong Kong, Korea and Southeast Asia all attended the event, shining a starlight to celebrate.

During the summer, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault also spent a high-profile trip to China, a sign that the region plays big for the group. The data proves it, in LVMH’s first nine months of this year, 32% of the income came from Asia(excluding Japan), and the majority of which was from China.

Then, the city itself as a core luxury spending destination was another major factor. As Euromonitor reported, Hong Kong again climbed to the first place as the highest per capita spending on luxury goods. Even after suffering a huge brain drain and capital outflow, Hong Kong still remains the world’s premier city for ultra high net worth individuals with 12,615 ahead of New York’s 11,845.

Also, Hong Kong is one of the markets in Asia that established luxury retail stores very early (Louis Vuitton opened its first store in the region in 1979, just after the brand’s two stores in Japan). That being said, Hong Kong people have a tradition for luxury spending, and the majority of its super-rich still live here to spend. Needless to say, the personal ties between Williams and local entrepreneurs (specifically Adrian Cheng, the CEO of K11’s parent company New World Development) also play a vital role.

A broad picture behind the decisions is Hong Kong’s global influence on the Greater China market(including Taiwan, Macau and Mainland China), South Korea, Japan and Thailand, which no other Asian cities have yet to reach.