European luxury big business and emerging Asian markets, 1960-2010

This article tackles the transformation of the European luxury business since the 1960s, through the examples of the French fashion industry and the Swiss watch business. It argues that emerging Asian markets, that is, Japan between the 1960s and the 1990s and subsequently China since 2000, have played a key role in this process as the major outlets. It examines the strategies adopted to access East Asia markets and how they were affected by the emergence of luxury multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the 1980s. While department stores were a gateway to Japanese market since the 1960s, they gradually lost their bargaining power when French and Swiss MNEs began to internalise distribution and to implement a global brand management strategy. This feature is also a major characteristic of the distribution of luxury goods in China, where MNEs are directly involved.