일정한 수입이 없는 대학생들이 주변의 분위기에 휩쓸려 너도나도 명품을 구입하는 행태를 비판했습니다.
대학생들의 생활 속에 자리 잡고 있는 고급지상주의의 실태를 꼬집고 바람직한 소비문화에 대해 생각해보았습니다.
The character in following story is imaginary. “Anna (23) is preparing for her upcoming middle school union party that will be held in two weeks. Since it was her first time to attend this party, she is filled with great expectations, but at the same time she wants to have a luxurious brand bag. Though she is not successful enough to buy the expensive brand, she thought she could display a high-rent image to her friends. At the day of the union party, not only Anna, but also her other girlfriends examined each other’s brands.”
At the present time, Korea has a second name in the commercial world-the Republic of Luxury Goods. All sorts of luxury goods are sold here. University students are no exception. Like the story mentioned above, Anna and her friends judge each other by the brands they are wearing and for this try to buy expensive brand products. What pushes them to obsess over brands?
Although consumption is regarded as freedom of the individual, is it right that university students who are mostly dependent on their parents buy expensive brand products which have the same price as one semester’s tuition fee? Especially in the present situation, many students have been demonstrating for lower tuition fees, but proclaiming the liberty to consume is just fine? If your expenditures give a feeling of deprivation to your friends and do not support you to go further in your life, this is very wasteful and you should look closely at your patterns of consumption. The University Life will suggest to you what is right and reasonable consumption through this article.
Definition and Range of Luxury Goods
Definition of luxury goods: According to the book, “Luxury Business,” by Kim, Gi-hong, luxury goods are products and services that are not considered essential and are associated with affluence. Commonly it is considered to have tradition or to be a master- piece. But recently, the characteristic of luxury goods and imported brands have changed into a trend.
Range of luxury goods: From crown to toe, all products that can dress the wearer, from hair accessories, to cosmetics, rings, clothes, bags, shoes, watches, and so on. For popular luxury goods, there are Louis Vitton, Chanel, Gucci, Fendi, Prada, etc.
As for another range, there is are masstige brands, semiluxury brands a compound word that combines mass and prestige such as MCM, Bean pole, and Tommy Hilfiger. These brands have similar quality to luxury brands but at more reasonable prices. In this article, we include the range of luxury goods excluding masstige brands.
Consumption of Luxury Goods Became Trendy for 20s
According to the recent report by Mackinsey, an international consulting company in August 2011, the scale of the luxury goods market in Korea has kept increasing about for 12% every year since 2006, even though Korea been through a financial crisis in 2008. In 2010, its reached over 45 billion won in sales in Korea. The report also show that the ratio of luxury consumption to household income reached 5%, passing Japan which is famous for luxury goods. Even on September 10 this year, Yves Carcelle, the CEO of Louis Vitton, indicated that Korea as one of the four big markets for luxury goods.
As purchasing luxury goods become trendy among university students, the luxury goods industry has caught this trend and developed marketing for their new customers. Followed by statistical data of Lotte Avenual Department Store, which carries only luxury goods, last year among customers who used Daegu and Sangin branches, those in their 20s used the department store overwhelmed consumers in their 40s and 50s the generation that is expected to use the store most. In first place was consumers in their 30s at 40%.
The luxury industry developed two main marketing tools which target youngsters. One is “Celebrity Marketing.” Celebrity marketing is a marketing technique to sponsor celebrities based on youngsters’ desire to follow their favorite stars. One manager from Fendi brand said, “The shopping bag worn by Sandara Park, a member of 2NE1 at the airport was exposed to the public. Then it was all sold to trendy young women.”
The other marketing tool is traditional luxury brands releasing a second brand that is targeted to more young people. The second brand literally is a young version of existing luxury brands—a practical and trendy design but at a cheaper price compared to the traditional one. “Through mass production and cheaper material, it decreased the price but retained the luxurious image that the original one has,” said the manager of Miumiu. D&G from Dolce & Gabana, CK from Calvin Klein, Miumiu from Prada, and Marc. by.Marc Jacobs from Marc. Jacobs are typical of second brands.
Why Youngsters Are Obsessed to Luxury?
As we have seen the luxury industry prepares for its young customers, it is obvious that young people have power in the market. In other words, it could be said that they are obsessed with luxury. Then why have youngsters become passionate for luxury goods?
First, our society’s wealth meets with our original culture. Since 2007, when national income passed over two million won per household the luxury industry market grew by 22.4% in 2010. This wealth encounters our original culture: ostentation. Traditionally, in our Confucian culture, Koreans always care about the thinking of others. It contributes to us taking care of our appearance for others even more than what the individual wants. Lee, Chang-soon, a Professor of Division of Social Science at Kyung Hee University (KHU), “Our cultural characteristic combines with luxury goods. So, to give a good impression to others, people want to buy luxury goods as much as possible.”
So far, we have taken a look at the cultural reasons behind purchasing luxury goods. Now we will take a look at the psychological sides. As we experienced in the agricultural age, we lived together and have had a history of great cooperation, so the pressure to conform to others is very strong. Thus, even in the individual modernized age, Koreans feel the pressure to conform. If others have luxury brand products, it pushes people to have similar high brand products. Kim, Gi-hong, the author of “Luxury Science” said, “Koreans do not buy luxuries any more for showing off. Now the consumption of luxury goods is in the process of conformation and standard practice.”
But according to the philosopher Jean Baudrillard, modern people spend their money only to make a gap with others. People want to reveal how successful they are by what they have. He asserts that in the modern age, consumption is not meant to buy essential things. It is to buy things to display or to have fun. So if luxury consumption is standardized practice, it could be quite a matter.
Yes, it is true there are clearly some reasons why and how people became passionate about luxury goods and how now it seems even natu¬ral. Nevertheless, there are also some reasons to abstain from luxury goods.
Despite the fact that humans have the desire for beauty, if undergraduates buy luxury goods, they pass the boundaries as university students. The reasons why they should not buy high-priced good are as follows.First, it is irrational consumption because it exceeds students’ economic power. According to a survey on university students conducted by a job searching portal website, Alba Heaven (www.alba. co.kr), 27.5% answered ‘yes’ to the question ‘have you ever had a job in order to purchase luxury goods?’ and 40% answered ‘I want to buy luxury goods even if I have to work.’ As shown above, some of them had part-time jobs to save the money needed for luxury goods despite their need to devote themselves to study more as university students. Even though most of the students who are addicted to luxury goods have little income, they always felt an impulse to buy luxury goods without considering their ability to pay.
Second, people misunderstand luxury goods’ quality. Some people who prefer luxury goods rather than cheaper brands may retort that the luxury goods are well worth the price because of its outstanding quality. They may think that they could use them for a long time because they believe that luxury goods are made by master craftsman with painstaking care. However, they are wrong. Many luxury goods in the market are ready-made products and are made in the third world not in well-known countries for luxury goods such as France and Italy. “Koreans have the blind faith and live under the delusion that luxury goods have high quality. So, they pay much more than its actual value,” said Won, Dae-yun, the Chief of the Korean Fashion Association.
Lastly, the consumption of luxury goods can make university students lose their identity. If they purchase much more expensive luxury goods in order to differentiate themselves others. But ironically, their fashions are day by day conforming to a single standard because they purchase only a limited number of brands. Professor Lee said, “Some students want to show their personality, but on the other hand, they blindly imitate others. There is a duplicity.” They have the same awareness of luxury goods, and that allows us to see similar fashion on campus.
Those Who Reject the Luxury Goods
The following stories are about people who spend money while maintaining their own style. Neil Boorman, the author of “Bonefire of the Brands,” was a luxury goods lover. He spent most of his earnings on buying luxury goods and evaluated other people depending on their brands. Then one day, he read a sentence in a book. “Advertisements are effective because of anxiety. They create an air of anxiety that the person who does not have luxury goods is not worthy as a modern human.” Impressed by that, he decided to live without brand products. He first burned his luxury goods including his Louis Vitton bag. At the same time, the burning was broadcasted live across the world. While broadcasting and writing the book “Bonefire of the Brands,” he inspired and alerted people to luxury goods. As we see with Neil Boorman’s story, it is not true that we could raise our confidence with luxury goods. The brands enterprises give us the wrong impression in order to sell their products.
There are many other methods of consumption. For example, some brands are called Specialty retailers of Private label Apparel (SPA) such as GAP, UNIQLO, ZARA, and H&M. Even though they market their products at a lower price, their products have standard quality and do not fall behind in fashion trends, so they are called ‘fast fashion.’ Such brands gain incredible popularity throughout the world. UNIQLO, one of the SPA brands, has been a great success in Korea with about 60% average growth rate every year since 2005. Shin, Ju-yeon, a student who wears UNIQLO clothes at Hankook University of Foreign Studies said, “It is enough to express one’s individuality with lower-priced brands like UNIQLO.”
We have seen the reasons why luxury-oriented consumption is negative. It seems to be difficult to fight the temptation towards luxury goods. Many people may say that we need to swim with the current of the tide by seeking luxury brands. However, do not be trapped by dogma. Sometimes we have to keep a distance from the stream of the times. Otherwise, we could be swept away by the stream. You can fulfill your desire not just by luxury goods. “I hope that students could pursue happiness in their own ways,” said Im, Seung-pil, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at KHU. Now, if you have any luxury goods, look at them and then yourself. Which one is luxurious? You or the luxury goods?
“Cha-Tech,” Investment in Fashion Bag?
There is a neologism “Cha-Tech,” which represents a growing luxury goods market in Korea. The compound word is formed from the words “Chanel,” a luxury brand, and “Investment Techniques.” Cha-Tech is the new investment method that uses the price difference between domestic and overseas markets when the price of luxury goods rises.
Through the following case, we can more clearly understand Cha-Tech. Recently, there were some young women who went to France in order to purchase Chanel bags. The reason they did that was to resell the goods at a profit. For example, in France, we can get Chanel’s steady seller, the “2.55 bag series,” at the price about two million won lower than in the Korean market. This purchase technique can make a huge profit by reselling certain products several years after purchase. Even if the exchange rate falls, the luxury goods price always rises. So, they can get more earnings than other investments such as funds and stocks.
However, Cha-Tech reveals a negative side in society. Most Korean luxury goods distributors say, “The higher the price, the more consumers purchase those products.” The paradox implies the “Veblen effect,” which is a strange phenomenon in which sales increase when the price rises. For this reason, the prices of some luxury goods in Korea have drastically risen more than in other countries. In Korea, Chanel has hiked prices of its products four times in the past three years. The markup was 25% in April, 2011.
Smuggling luxury items is also a problem of Cha-Tech in Korea. Some flight attendants commit the crime as well. According to the data written by Parliamentary Inspection of the Administration, the number of cases in which smuggling or violating the Customs Law by flight attendants numbered 60 last year. It was 20 times more compared to only three cases in 2009.
Some people argue that Cha-Tech is unproductive because it is just luxury goods stocked up in anticipation of higher prices. They say that Cha-Tech is a pretext for satisfying a few women’s unhealthy desire. Um, A-reum, a female university student said, “I think some young women these days are full of vanity, being satisfied just by owning luxury goods. A friend of mine is one example. She loves such luxury goods. She buys the goods sometimes, and resells the new product when she wants other luxury goods.” Cha-Tech indicates the shadow of preference for luxury goods in our society. Professor Lee, Chang-soon left a significant message about that word. “The word Cha-Tech points out such a problem of some women who are vain and have an overspending habit.