The exclusive Salon Privé event, where the super-rich pay hundreds of pounds to see the latest supercars, is now playing host the latest pieces of kit from electronics giant Samsung, luxury phonemaker Vertu and a host of other electronics companies. All are keen to sign customers up to buy premium products that are as stylish as they are expensive.
Running at Middlesex’s Syon Park Hotel, Salon Privé was the venue for the launch of Samsung’s latest technology to make television portable. Integrating with the S2 mobile phone, ‘Smart View’ lets users watch whatever’s on their TV screen or blu-ray player on the phone. In due course it will come to other Samsung devices, and the company’s hope is that viewers will never miss another moment of viewing, and will also buy in to a suite of products made by Samsung.
The appeal of Privé, however, is access to a market of affluent consumers who have shown themselves over years to dislike high-street shopping but be perfectly willing and able to pay for products that are as well designed as they functional.
That’s part of the logic behind the Vertu mobile phone brand, which seeks to do for mobile phones what companies such as Rolex have done for watches – that means luxurious materials used in devices that are hand-made in the company’s Church Crookham factory. Remove the back and you’ll find the signature of the artisan who put your phone together.
The appeal of Syon Park’s luxurious setting is obvious, but Salon Privé also shows the lengths to which major brands now feel they have to go sell their most upmarket wares. Designer luxury has clearly spread well beyond the catwalks. Any improvement on the usual retail experience is surely to be applauded.
