Vietnam Develops Taste for Luxury Goods
Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:53 PM EDT
Images
(showing 1 of 8 photos)
A luxury car is parked on a street in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in this May 23, 2007 photo. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
A
young Vietnamese girl and her father shop at the Gucci store in Ho Chi
Minh City, Vietnam, in this May 24, 2007 photo. In a country whose
peasant army once marched on flip-flops made from old tires, Gucci
beach sandals priced at $365 can come as a shock. (AP Photo/David
Guttenfelder)
Gucci
employees sit at a table outside a Gucci shop and other newly opened
high-end luxury goods stores in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on May 24,
2007. In the two decades since Vietnam began implementing its economic
reforms, known as doi moi, the nation's poverty rate has been cut in
half and per capita income has doubled in the last five years. (AP
Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Vietnamese
women pass by a Gucci store in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in this May
24, 2007 photo. In the two decades since Vietnam began implementing its
economic reforms, known as doi moi, the nation's poverty rate has been
cut in half and per capita income has doubled in the last five years.
(AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
Burberry
salesperson Vu Thuy Linh poses with a purse at a new store in Hanoi,
Vietnam Aug. 30, 2007. Burberry opened their store in front of Opera
House, rear, earlier in the month. The Luxury market is booming in
Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh's communist revolution exalted equality and
the common man just a generation ago. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)
A
collection of belts are seen in a Louis Vuitton store in Hanoi,
Vietnam, Aug. 31, 2007. The Luxury market is booming in Vietnam, where
Ho Chi Minh's communist revolution exalted equality and the common man
just a generation ago. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)
A
Cyclo driver waits for customers in front of a Louis Vuitton store in
Hanoi, Vietnam, Aug. 31, 2007. The Luxury market is booming in Vietnam,
where Ho Chi Minh's communist revolution exalted equality and the
common man just a generation ago.(AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)
People
walk inside a luxury shopping mall in Hanoi, Vietnam, Aug. 30, 2007.
The Luxury market is booming in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh's communist
revolution exalted equality and the common man just a generation ago.
(AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki)
In
a country whose peasant army once marched on flip-flops cut from old
tires, Gucci beach sandals priced at $365 can come as a shock.
But
the luxury market is booming in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh's communist
revolution exalted equality and the common man just a generation ago.
As
the country begins to embrace private enterprise, its nouveaux riches
are snapping up shoes at Gucci, handbags at Louis Vuitton and watches
at Cartier, offering proof of how much the country has changed after
decades of war.
"I sold a $4,000 leather jacket recently," said
Do Huong Ly, a stylish young saleswoman at the Roberto Cavalli shop in
Hanoi. "Our customers want people to know that they are high-class."
Not
long ago, displays of wealth were frowned upon in Vietnam. Those
tire-sandaled troops who bested the French colonial army and outlasted
the Americans embodied frugality and egalitarianism. The revolutionary
government snatched up the assets of the wealthy and redistributed them
to the poor.
But since the late 1980s, a government that once
micromanaged all economic affairs has been introducing free-market
reforms and courting foreign investors, and with them have come new
western styles and attitudes.
"Members of the new generation want
to enjoy life and pamper themselves with luxurious things," said Nguyen
Thi Cam Van, 39, who has purchased five $1,000 handbags at Louis
Vuitton.
"If I can afford to buy something nice, it makes me feel
proud," said Van, who works at Siemens and also consults for a
Vietnamese import company. "It lets you show people your taste and
style."
One of her friends has 50 Louis Vuitton bags, Van said. "I think five is enough."
Some
of Vietnam's shopaholics are young people who work for multinational
corporations but still live rent-free with their parents. Others work
for powerful state-owned companies and many have made fortunes in
Vietnam's small but booming private sector.
They indulge their urge to splurge at Dolce and Gabbana, Burberry, Escada, Rolex, Clarins, Shiseido and the like.
In
the two decades since Vietnam began implementing its economic reforms,
the nation's poverty rate has been cut in half, and per capita income
has doubled in the last five years.
Still, most workers in this nation of 84 million people still earn just a dollar or two a day toiling in the farm fields.
Those working low-wage jobs find the new lust for luxury hard to stomach.
"The
rich are getting richer, and the rest of us are struggling to make ends
meet," said Dao Quang Hung, a Hanoi taxi driver. "The money they spend
on a Louis Vuitton bag could buy several cows for a farmer's family and
lift them out of poverty."
At the new Gucci shop in Ho Chi Minh City, the flip-flops are among the economy items.
The
black-clad sales staff, looking fresh off a fashion show runway in
Milan, offer a pair of golden, spike-heeled shoes for $765.
Across
the hall at the Milano store, the display last year featured a $54,000
Dolce and Gabbana dress, one of just three in the world, according to
marketing director Dang Tu Anh, who represents both stores.
The others, Anh said, were worn by film star Nicole Kidman and Victoria Beckham, the former Spice Girl.
Milano's best customers, Anh said, think nothing of dropping $5,000 on a handbag and a pair of shoes.
"If they can buy something luxurious, it proves they have money," Anh said. "And that's good."
Vietnam's
older generation, shaped by the hardships of war, finds itself at odds
with younger Vietnamese over the new consumerism.
"Now the
younger generation in Vietnam is racing for materialistic enjoyment,"
said Huu Ngoc, a 90-year-old scholar and author. "Individualism is
destroying our cultural identity. We may become richer but lose our
soul."
The war generation wasted nothing and always saved for the
future, convinced that catastrophe lurked around every corner. But
opinion surveys show that the 60 percent of Vietnamese born after 1975
are very optimistic about the future — and determined to enjoy the here
and now.
Van, for example, enjoys pampering herself at the salon
with massages and manicures. But she lives in fear that her father, a
college professor, will learn about her five Louis Vuitton handbags.
"I
can't tell him I have these," she said. "And I would never tell him how
much they cost. He would think that I was completely irresponsible."
Van's
indulgences are modest compared to those of Vietnam's super elite, who
tool around in the ultimate status symbols: a shiny BMW or
Mercedes-Benz.
And pay cash.
"In America, you pay in
installments," said Nguyen Hoang Trieu, luxury car dealer in Ho Chi
Minh City, the former Saigon. "Here, you pay all at once, in cash.
Sometimes people come in here with $400,000 in a suitcase."
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