FG Discusses Why Japanese Buy French Crap

[Captain Japan]

French luxury lobby captain mulls Japan's brand fixation
Japan Times

Japan is famous for its fondness of luxury brands, particularly those from France. In fact, when the money spent shopping on vacation is included, Japanese consumers may buy as much as 45 percent of all luxury goods sold worldwide, analysts at the HSBC Group in Paris recently estimated. To keep an eye on the land that is its largest source of revenue, the French luxury industry lobby retains a public relations agent in Tokyo, and officials from the Comite Colbert, a trade organization representing 68 French luxury brands, pay regular visits to Japan. The committee represents a diverse range of crafts, from fashion design to glass, crystal, leather, porcelain, champagne, hotels, restaurants, perfume and interior design, and seeks to extol the virtues of the French art of fine living across the globe. President and CEO of the organization since 2003, Elizabeth Ponsolle des Portes began her career as an academic before joining the French Culture Ministry and later UNESCO. The Japan Times caught up with her at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo during a recent trip to Tokyo.

Q:What do you think is behind Japanese people's fixation with French luxury brands?
A:The French luxury sector is really a cultural industry; although we are manufacturing products, they rely very heavily on French culture. As Japan is also a country where culture is very important, our products resound very strongly for Japanese consumers. We are not only speaking about products, but we are also speaking about culture and they are very sensitive to that....more garbage like this here...

[canman]

I didn't know that Steven Colbert worked for the French Gov't. What a guy, show on Comedy central and moonlighting for the Frenchies.

[baka tono]

the French, the Italians and whoever dont really care WHY the Japanese buy luxury crap, all that matters is that they buy it.

[Ke11iente]

It's not so much about culture, I think. The Japanese love hegemony more than they love culture. And buying luxury brands is all about buying into product hegemony (the idea that this or that namebrand is inherently better because other people also believe that it's better, but no one can really say why they think that way).

Hegemony. It's such a good word! There's nothing better for describing things like this (the Japanese obsession with luxury and name brands).