Whats Next: Luxury Travel, Lifestyle & Real Estate Trends
Life in the Slow Lane: Nostalgic and Expensive
MIAMI (Business Wire EON) April 14, 2008 --
While most of today’s 24/7 world seems to be
speeding up, a growing number of the affluent among us are taking a road
less traveled and slowing down.
One of the latest lifestyle trends is to incorporate something labeled “slow”
into food and fashion, to design and travel - even sex. What does this
mean? For one thing, the affluent are looking backwards to a nostalgic
past – whether real or rosily imagined –
for inspiration. It's the lifestyle equivalent of “comfort
food.” Those who are detouring along this
rarified path fully expect to pay a premium to apply a touch of the
brakes in everything they do.
Home-Grown, Handed-Down and Locavores
Some cultural anthropologists trace the beginnings of this burgeoning
lifestyle slowdown to Rome’s historic Piazza
di Spagna. It was back in 1986 that the so-called “slow
food” movement was born. Disdaining the spread
of American chain restaurants and fast food, as they crossed the
Atlantic and began to invade the Old World, adherents of the new credo
focused once again on the fresh, the local and the artisanal. In so many
ways, it was a back-to-the-future moment.
The idea was to take a U-turn back to the days of farmers’
markets, handed-down recipes and, above all, leisurely dining with
family and friends. Two decades later, products created in artisanal
mode are coveted once more. Celebrity chefs turn to long communal tables
in their newest outposts (Bar Boulud) and hotels and restaurants
highlight the provider and provenance of products in their fanciest
menus. Old-fashioned nose-to-tail dining on all parts of the beast is
back in vogue, based on yesteryear’s
satisfying nostrum: waste not, want not.
This lifestyle reverse even permeates our everyday vocabulary. One use
of speech derived from the slow food movement was recently awarded “Word
of the Year” by the New Oxford American
Dictionary. Are you a locavore? It means someone who cooks with and
dines on locally produced foods.
Finding the Right Speed, Not the Fastest
The idea of a slow food
movement bears implications beyond simple consumption. It encompasses an
entirely new direction in how the affluent choose to live their lives.
As writer Carl Honore describes in his best seller, In Praise of Slow,
the global slow movement challenges the modern cult of speed. It’s
about how to live better in a fast-paced world by striking a balance.
You find not the fastest speed, but the right speed.
The philosophy is already spawning the notion of Slow Cities, from the
UK and Norway, to Brazil. Combustion engine vehicles are strictly
limited, walking is encouraged, and mission statements talk about the “serenity”
of everyday life and “reflective”
living. In Japan, one city’s mayor issued a
"Take-It-Easy Declaration", encouraging residents to leave work early,
take a walk with the family and talk to neighbors. Residents are
gravitating towards Slow Homes where bigger isn’t
always better, quality prevails, design is individual, and care is taken
to use healthy building materials, preferably recycled (such as
fashionable, old woods). Residents may even engage in Slow Sex, choosing
to emphasize spirituality and quality over quantity.
Out With Rock Stars, In With Farmers
In this new slower world, farmers become society’s
heroes. The new luxury lifestyle status symbol is owning farmland. With
slow in mind, a growing real estate trend among second-home buyers is to
invest in less urban escapes, such as green-pastured horse farms,
ranches, vineyards or olive groves. Even in dense urban areas, such as
Manhattan, city dwellers are turning their backyards into mini fruit
orchards. In slow food vernacular, they are “co-producers”
rather than “consumers.”
By becoming part of the process, they control the speed, escape
homogeneity and enjoy a form of creative self-expression.
Enjoying the Journey
In its most glamorous heyday, travel was slow –
of necessity, but also sometimes by design. It possessed sophistication,
merely because only the affluent could afford it. Now, the trend is to
recapture a bit of this nostalgic haze by savoring the journey once
again, not just the destination. Slow leisure is the aim. Instead of
pursuing yesterday’s extreme adventures, today’s
slow travelers seek to spend their time contemplating, relaxing and
reveling in doing very little or nothing. Witness the growing, global
travel trend of transatlantic cruises, luxury trains, and the newest
unconventional offering – The Manned Cloud
airship. Under development by French designers Massaud
Studio, the 700 foot long airship will offer 40 passengers
accommodation similar to that of a luxury cruise ship plus a library,
gym and even terraces. With a top speed of 105 mph, it’s
about simply enjoying the view.
Old Foods Are New Again
For those seeking to experience slow foods abroad, culinary tourism, one
of the hippest travel trends in 2008, will go well beyond cooking
classes. Epicurean adventures will extend to agricultural villages where
food is grown, to food lovers markets and to obscure food festivals in
the four corners of the world. For example, the annual saffron harvest
attracts crowds to Consuegra, Spain. Travelers forage with the pigs at
the White Truffle Fair in Alba, Italy. In Cyprus, travelers learn the
secrets of making the local Halloumi cheese or how to cure olives - a
blending of two larger trends: gastronomy and enrichment travel.
Fashioned From the Fields
No longer a utopian or fringe movement, Slow Fashion is emerging from
the uppermost echelons of fashion designers’
elite. During New York’s Fashion Week,
renowned fashion critic Suzy Menkes observed, “We’re
getting beyond the idea of ‘Look at me, look
at me.’ Fashion today is becoming more about
calmness than flash.” Classic silhouettes are
making a comeback, some with a sustainable or green twist. This year’s
Academy Awards red carpet saw the appearance of a sustainable gown from
designer Linda Loudermilk - a bespoke dress fashioned from hemp silk
with organic cotton and “vintage findings”
as accents. A trend for jewelry lovers: classic pearls are the new
choice over diamonds; sustainable, understated and with shades of
nostalgia. For those who want what The New York Times calls “Punk
Meets Park Avenue” look, pearls are combined
with contemporary chains, beads and estate brooches.
For over 29 years, first in New York City and now in Miami, Karen Weiner
Escalera and her firm’s KWE
group have been among the nation’s
leading marketing and public relations experts in the luxury travel,
hospitality and real estate industries. Her campaigns have been cited as
setting the standard in publications including Advertising Age, Nation's
Business, and Fortune Small Business. A thought leader in luxury
lifestyle, she is the editor of an internationally syndicated luxury
travel and lifestyle trends newsletter and blog, and a frequent speaker
on luxury travel. KWE group is a founding member of Tourism
Trademark, a global network of independent marketing communications
firms specializing in travel, hospitality and destinations.
Copyright © 2007, 2008 KWE
group, Inc.
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