Luxury Briefing.

ALMOST exactly two years ago I was asked to present at a Luxury Brie?ng Conference my views on the then-safely-distant-still-ominously-looming year of 2012, and the ‘new paradigm’ that would characterize it. There was a crest of interest back then around the well-documented ‘end of time’ in the Mayan calendar, with copious and colorful prognostications and even a Hollywood disaster epic called ‘2012’ stirring the foment. A takeaway from the movie’s trailer showed the Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro teetering on its perch, then crashing into an inferno below. Flash forward to the present, with two full years and an unholy cavalcade of natural and man-made disasters under our collective belt, and I can report today from my writing nook in Ipanema, Christ is still standing to see another Christmas, though I’m told a random volcano plume is heading this way to obscure a clear view of Him.

I would like to mention fyi that in the Mayan calendar the year already started, on October 28, 2011. Exactly on cue, October 29 in New York. a fierce nor’easter lashed the region with wind, ice and a freakish snowfall that downed 1,000 trees in Central Park. Since then we have experienced what now passes for business as usual in a background of spikes and dips in the markets as well as air temperature, alongside the increasingly familiar events of a global town-square resistance movement… alongside the counter-intuitive mob chaos around Versace items at H&M… Clearly something is up, making people prone to activation.

What’s doing it? There is a feeling in the air that pre-empts rational, mental process, that is still perceptible, that just is. The new paradigm has also been described as a series of realizations that make it possible to harmonize the discordant strains of the present – of capitalism in a train wreck alongside the record sales figures from cyber Mondays and Black Fridays. One realization being that the businessman’s perspective might be the bottom line but it will not be the last word.

Another might be that the element of surprise is nothing to be dreaded, but welcomed as a relief from protracted stalemate and futility. That’s what am I doing in Brazil, at the crossroads to 2012 and beyond. Exploring the fresh menu of options presented here, experimenting with the unfamiliar dynamics in this petri dish of 21st-century progress and correction, observing something new under the gaze of the Redeemer. Yes Brazil is a solid BRIC economy but it still maintains for itself a position outside the box. And here in Rio, the new Downtown Planet Earth for at least the foreseeable future, there is much hope emanating from the pacified favelas, a renewed spirit of ‘Yes We Can’ inherited from Barak Obama’s tumbledown overtures, which fuels the increasing readiness for the multitude of world stage events scheduled through 2018. First up, the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, that has the town abuzz with event preparations for the June summit of world leaders and advocates. Through working with the Rio Mayor’s office on several initiatives it is clear that progressive big business will play a major role here. But reviewing the roster of corporate sponsorships – from banks, technology, entertainment, food and beverage consortiums – there is not even the peripheral mention of a luxury brand. Which I have to say, still surprises me.

Is the focus of Big Luxury so entirely fixed on frontier town millionaires in China that an entire lead industry loses sight of Downtown Planet Earth? There is much to be learned as well as gained in joining the party in its planning stages rather than showing up late to stalk its revelers. I have always thought of luxury as a lead industry – and have said so many times in many settings – with the taste, the talent and the resources to have a positive impact on the central dialog. Which I personally am endeavoring to hear, here in the new Promised Land, with its potholes, poets and parakeets…
Wherever you are, here, there, everywhere, Happy New Year! Party like it’s 2012!

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