The shifting market for luxury: can legacy brands navigate new trends and buyers?

Hidden Treasures will open at The Shed in late May after New York’s Frieze and auction week. The exhibition celebrates French luxury through the work of Bénédicte Épinay, president and chief executive of Comité Colbert. Comité Colbert represents 96 French luxury brands, 17 cultural institutions, and six European luxury brands, including the Musée du Louvre, Le Bristol, Balenciaga, Veuve Clicquot, Diptyque, Christofle, and Louis Vuitton. The show frames cultural diplomacy as a way to reframe the power of luxury. The timing also aligns with the US’s 250th anniversary and historical Franco-American entente. Comité Colbert previously used exhibitions to support cross-country craftsmanship exchange, influencing policy outcomes such as tariff reductions on cognac.

"Hidden Treasures will take over The Shed in the wake of the contemporary art fair. The force behind the show is Bénédicte Épinay, the president and chief executive of Comité Colbert, the influential French organisation whose members-from Alain Ducasse to Yves Saint Laurent-include 96 French luxury brands, 17 cultural institutions and six European luxury brands. The Musée du Louvre, Le Bristol hotel, Balenciaga, Veuve Clicquot, Diptyque, Christofle and Louis Vuitton will all be there."

""I believe," Épinay says, "that cultural diplomacy can reframe the power of luxury." For younger generations, craftsmanship, creativity and culture are a prerequisite. Entente de luxe. It is no coincidence that this act of cultural diplomacy is taking place during the US's 250th anniversary and nods to the centuries of entente that extended from the alliance between the Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington."

"Épinay, a former journalist, has proved to be an adept practitioner of the diplomatic arts, backed by the hopes of multiple luxury chief executives. In Shanghai in 2024, in the face of high tariffs, Comité Colbert presented Jeux de Mains, an exhibition focused on the exchange of craftsmanship between the two countries. Steep tariffs on cognac were soon dropped."

"There is logic to Épinay's US focus. Luxury brands now depend on the country for around a third of sales. Talk of a post-Covid K-shaped recovery curve (where different parts of the economy recover at different speeds)-and with Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels enjoying a 14% rise in regional sa"

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