The most recent issue of Brandchannel carries a feature, "French Luxury Brands, A Modern Day Classic", by Chauncey Zalkin (girlonthestreet.com). Striking an admonmitory note as to the relationship between luxury branding and genuine quality, she says:

" ... with today's growing luxury brand-obsessed demographics spreading across the globe, there is a risk of a real devaluation in the value and perception of luxury brands as they become more available, accessible, and attached to the bling quotient.

When it comes to luxury brands then and now in fact, much is lost in translation. For example, when asked about luxury brand sales, one Parisian personal shopper to wealthy clientele, Noémie Khatchadourian, says she has a hard time finding American clients with the declining strength of the US dollar. "All of my clients are Russian. I must educate them on the French touch though. When they first come to me, all they want is bling.” The concept of "bling" is decidedly at odds with the French concept of luxury.

The French value the idea of longevity and the importance of heritage as it relates to the quality of products. In a modern day marketplace where character is achieved in clothing through "distressed" jeans and shirts, many people tend to think of authenticity as something we manufacture—like theme parks. The French appreciate heritage because it contains the story of themselves—their identity. Who they are has been fermenting for years in the barrels of wines, and is etched deep in the stones of their 15th to 19th century architecture.

“The acknowledgement that one is great because one is standing on the shoulders of past giants is essential if we are going to be serious about our work,” says creative director Alexander Gallé, who has worked on French luxury brands YSL, Garrard, and Boucheron. And nobody could ever accuse the French of not being serious—least of all about their luxe. Philippe Mihailovich—a South African brand strategist and university professor who grew up with a chic Parisian perfumer mother whose own mother was a “Fath,” as in famous designer Jacques Fath—moved to Paris five years ago to investigate luxury brand culture. "With French luxury, it’s the story, the true authentic story," he explains. "Without that, without the heart, your brand is nothing.”

For many luxury brands the French touch is where the value lies—that combination of heartfelt whimsy, that elusive nuance that can't be described, but no doubt exists, in an elegant product that is built to last. That never loses its meaning. For the French, quality comes before any apparent branding. In fact, the love of money is an object of scorn in France. Branding grows out of reputation and is maintained by quality standards. Philippe Starck says, “We (the French) are the world guardians of abstractions. The creators have to keep an extreme rigueur to deserve the glance of their peers. Thus, France is the country of quality".