On the heels of Paris Fashion Week and the abundance of glitteratti strolling around in the balmy summer weather wearing ostentatious dresses (I saw one model that seemed to wearing a ball gown made of rubber tubes and hanging orbs), it seems appropriate to reflect on the stages of wearable luxury.

Here’s how I see the luxury pyramid in my mind’s eye. [Warning: anyone that knows me could attest to my utter lack of legitimacy in commenting on anything luxury- or fashion-related. I am so unqualified in this domain that I only decided to publish this upon encouragement of a friend. I welcome all improvements to ensure proper positioning of the brands within this pyramid. Please take this illustration at face-value: a simple framework to help a neophyte like me organize me thinking.] The pyramid structure struck me as appropriate, probably because I was recently thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I would submit that entrepreneurs launching ventures in the fashion-tech space might consider how their endeavour would be positioned on this framework. (Special thanks to Junjie Peng for his graphical prowess!).