Guide to fab decor

Redecorating your home! You went to the best of showrooms, picked up furniture and furnishings. But still that feeling of great ambiance, that smell of luxury is missing and you cannot figure out why.
Let’s see. First impression is very important. Luxury is an experience which conspires to seduce your senses. The tag of being expensive, making it a luxury is a bygone era. What was luxury yesterday is a necessity today, hence making luxury subjective to individuals. None-the-less “living a luxury life” will transform your imagination to opulence and elegance. Luxury home is not just a big space with good amenities, it is a sum total of dedicated services to every need that sets apart luxury homes from others and transform the lifestyle.

So start with your entrance door and let it make a statement. Entrance door speaks a lot about the person staying in the home. Entrance door should definitely be tough with good withstanding to rain, scorching sun and intruders but yet it should be elegant enough to make a first impression. The main door can be done in wood, or veneered or even being in metal. But it has to offer a certain amount of resistance to the wear and tear. Choose the handle and hinges which describe the aura of the home. It is always advisable to extend the design of the chawkhat on the walls by wooden paneling or stone cladding, so that the door gives a larger and louder image. Even a contemporary minimalistic house should have an inviting, versatile and beautiful door. As you enter a house, luxury is described both visually, aromatically and audible distinctly. The dark wooden flooring with silk rugs, a luxurious couch, with overfilled cushions, an interesting light fixtures are all picture perfect for a peaceful abode. Just a few simple steps would add that extra tint of luxury:-



Add flowers to get freshness into the home. They add unmatchable beauty and liveliness and are soothing both visually and aromatically.

Candles specially aromatic ingrain in memory and add an associate to the experience of pleasantness. Besides being inexpensive, candles are stunning.
w Lighting plays a make or break role in the interiors. Besides artificial lights, sunlight is important for the spirit of the room. Adding dimmers to light where ever possible is an economical way to change the mood of the room.

Colours are known to have a profound effect on human mood. The neutral tones inspired by nature is a safer choice for luxury interiors.

The mattresses is an essential part of your bedroom. Add extra cushions and pillows to your bed in various sizes. The number of cushions in all cases make the bed look welcoming. Buy bed sheets which are soft and appropriate to your mattresses size. The best choice is white or soft pastels. Soft rugs placed besides your bed have two added advantages. Besides making the room look warm, they act like an insulation between your cold feet and the cold floor.
A decluttered clean look is visually pleasing. Keep all the clothes, books in their proper places.

For your bathrooms, invest in the oversized plush towels. If possible add a towel warmer as the feeling of warm towel after the bath can only be felt and not described.

Source: asianage.com

Why High-End Luxury Brands Are Losing Their Luster

"The best things in life are free. The second best things are very, very expensive," the queen of elegance Coco Chanel once stated. And she was right. In the world of "true" luxury, the relentless effort to create something that's in a class by itself was always rewarded with a sky-high price, which only an exclusive group could afford.

During the last half decade, however, an emerging "luxury for less" or "affordable luxury" industry thrives on emulating what once was considered exclusive and making it accessible to the masses. But, "true" luxury was never meant to be accessible. And this massification is causing an identity crisis, one that could have severe implications for high-end luxury brands down the line. The baffling questions 2013 was a rather mediocre year for some of the biggest luxury houses.

For instance, from 2010 to 2012, Louis Vuitton (NASDAQOTH: LVMUY ) experienced double-digit organic revenue growth rates, recovering quickly from the 2009 downturn. During 2013, though, the luxury behemoth's growth rate saw a moderate, yet worrisome decline to 8%. Owner of high-end brands such as Bottega Veneta and Yves Saint Laurent, Kering remained mired in stagnation for all of 2013 with consolidating revenue from continuous operations posting a 0.1% reported change over 2012.

Kering's largest luxury house, Gucci, recorded the weakest fourth-quarter sales in the last four years while its revenue sunk 2.1% in 2013. Some of the factors that underlie this rather disappointing performance include a challenging European economic climate, shifting consumer behavior in emerging markets, especially China, as well as the country's new anti-corruption campaign that bans lavish gifts. Even so, these headwinds could have been counterbalanced by increasing demand coming from the ever-growing population of global Ultra High Net Worth families, the luxury industry's niche clientele.

This group's combined wealth edged up over $1.5 trillion in 2013, reaching nearly $28 trillion, according to the UBS/Wealth-X 2013 World Ultra Wealth Report released last September. Where did all this money go? Apparently not to Gucci handbags. The redefined borders of luxury Based on the report's key findings, 65% of the world's ultra wealthy families are first-generation upstarts while around 80% of them are "self-made," meaning that they may not fit with the aspirational consumer profile many luxury houses target. These people gained upper-class status not by keeping tabs on the latest fashion trends, but rather by setting sights on growing their businesses.

They may not be as savvy about luxury brands as the those companies would like them to be. At the same time, an unfolding "democratic fashion" movement tolerated and, in some cases, enhanced by luxury brands themselves is indeed disrupting the luxury industry. This "democratic fashion" movement, which enables "affordable luxury" brands to take products once reserved for the rich and transform them into lower-priced alternatives, has never been more relevant. Yet, its influence often goes unnoticed.

 It's slowly but surely fueling more price-conscious consumer behavior, notably among Chinese consumers. Given the fact that over the next five years Asia is projected to generate more UHNW individuals and wealth compared to the United States and Europe, luxury brands could be missing out on a unique opportunity to resonate with the "new rich." How did we get here? It all started the moment the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, and Jimmy Choo begun courting popular, high-street retailers such as H&M.

When a high-street retailer with a nightmarish store environment teams up with a high-end, well-regarded designer and promotes the product as an insanely cheap, but still luxury good, what does that say about the luxury industry as a whole? It sacrificed service and quality for the altar of profit and shifted from being the essence of an aspirational lifestyle to nothing more than a facade. Where has that led us? 65% of international high-end retailers analyzed by design consultants Knight Frank and Woods Bagot, including Prada, Hermes, Gucci, and Burberry (LSE: BRBY ) , failed to reach their target number of store openings in China, the home country of the world's top consumers of luxury goods.

On the other hand, lower-priced, fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M beat their expansion plans. Not to mention Coach (NYSE: COH ) is taking China by storm, capitalizing on the current "luxury for less" norm. It's giving Louis Vuitton a run for its money by selling $400 handbags, as Bloomberg reported. Final thought To end with another one of Coco Chanel's inspirational quotes, "in order to be irreplaceable one must always be different." You can't be a brand that sells to everyone. Trying to reach the thirsty masses while risking your brand integrity will not get you far.

The "true" luxury industry needs to steer clear of everything "accessible" simply because, by definition, luxury was meant to be exclusive. It needs to focus on making sure that the ultra-rich families don't lose sight of it. And the only way to achieve that is by letting them know about the story behind the product and luring them with a one-of-a-kind, personalized shopping experience. There’s a huge difference between a good stock and a stock that can make you rich. The Motley Fool's chief investment officer has selected his No. 1 stock for 2014, and it’s one of those stocks that could make you rich. You can find out which stock it is in the special free report "The Motley Fool's Top Stock for 2014." Just click here to access the report and find out the name of this under-the-radar company.

Source: fool.com