Diors Cafe des Lices in Saint Tropez.
Ken Welsh/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Luxury fashion brands have opened restaurants all over the world.
This move could help brands appeal to Millennials and Generation Z, who increasingly value experiences over things.
Here are six brands that have opened restaurants in the US, Europe and Asia.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
When designer Ralph Lauren opened his first restaurant concept in Chicago in 1999, Industry analysts realized it was a novel concept, but questioned whether it was wise for the brand to enter the notoriously difficult restaurant business.
25 years later, the restaurant is still open and is located right next to the largest Ralph Lauren store in the world. Ralph Lauren’s restaurant space has expanded even further. Meanwhile, other luxury brands have followed in his footsteps and opened their own restaurants and cafes.
Entering the restaurant business could be a way for fashion brands to appeal to Millennials and Generation Z, who increasingly value experiences over objects.
Osmud Rahman, associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Fashion, told the Canadian newspaper „The Globe and Mail“that brands could use restaurants to appeal to consumers who otherwise couldn’t afford their physical products.
“This is affordable luxury,” Rahman said. While the restaurants aren’t exactly cheap, they’re perhaps affordable in a way that a $3,000 handbag isn’t.
Here are six luxury brands that have opened restaurants around the world.
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Ralph Lauren
After RL’s success on Michigan Ave. In Chicago, Ralph Lauren opened his first coffee shop, Ralph’s Coffee, in New York City in 2014. Today, Ralph’s Coffee has multiple locations in New York and has expanded to Chicago, Miami, Virginia and several European and Asian countries.
In 2015, Ralph Lauren opened perhaps the company’s best-known restaurant, Polo Bar, in New York. Since opening near the brand’s Fifth Avenue flagship, the stylish space has attracted celebrities and fashion icons. Ralph Lauren also has restaurants in Milan, Paris and Chengdu, China.
Jessica Chastain besucht die Ralph Lauren Fashion Show After Party in der Polo Bar in Midtown am 29. April 2024 in New York City.
Gotham/GC Images/Getty Images
Coach
In March, Coach opened its first-ever eponymous restaurant The Coach Restaurant in Jakarta, Indonesia. The restaurant is located in the Grand Indonesia Mall in Jakarta and is right next to a Coach store. The brand also opened The Coach Coffee Shop, which is also attached to the store.
Both concepts are inspired by New York City. The restaurant is modeled after a New York steakhouse and literally has an upside-down yellow taxi coming out of the ceiling, while the coffee shop serves pizza slices.
Louis Vuitton
In 2020, Louis Vuitton opened its first restaurant, Le Café V, in a four-story building owned by the French fashion house in Osaka, Japan. In 2021, the brand opened a second location in Tokyo, at its seven-story flagship in Ginza.
Louis Vuitton opened an independent one in Saint Tropez in 2022 on the terrace of the Hotel White 1921 Restaurant, which is not part of one of his stores. In 2023, the fashion house hired a three-Michelin-star chef, Arnaud Donckele, and a pastry chef, Maxime Frédéric, to run the restaurant.
The brand also opened the café and chocolate shop in Paris in 2022 Maxime Frédéric at Louis Vuitton at LV Dream, an exhibition and gift shop. Louis Vuitton opened in March LV The Place Bangkok in Thailand, which includes an exhibition about the brand’s history, a shop, a café and a gourmet restaurant.
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Dior
Dior has several Cafe Dior locations in Europe, the US and Asia, including Seoul, Paris and Miami, as well as one at Kansai International Airport in Japan. Dior also has the Mediterranean restaurant Dior des Lices in Saint Tropez.
In the Paris flagship of the French luxury fashion house there is La Pâtisserie Dior and the restaurant Mister Dior. Dior has also announced that it will open another Monsieur Dior in Japan in 2025, led by Anne-Sophie Pic, known for having received the most Michelin stars of any female chef.
Monsieur Dior im Dior flagship store in Paris. Dominique Maître/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images
Gucci
Gucci opened its first restaurant, Gucci Osteria, in Florence, Italy, in 2018 in collaboration with Massimo Bottura, the Italian restaurateur and chef at Osteria Francescana, a three-Michelin-star restaurant consistently ranked among the best in the world.
The Italian fashion house opened a U.S. location of Gucci Osteria in Beverly Hills in 2020 and also has locations in Tokyo and Seoul. The locations in Florence, Beverly Hills and Tokyo have all received a Michelin star.
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Tiffany & Co.
Tiffany & Co. opened the Petrossian at Tiffany restaurant in 2022 in collaboration with the caviar brand at South Coast Plaza, an upscale shopping center in Costa Mesa, California. The restaurant’s focus is on champagne and caviar.
The American luxury jewelry brand also has Michillen-starred chef Daniel Boulud’s Blue Box Cafe, located in the Tiffany flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York City. The brand also has the Tiffany Blue Box Cafe in the luxury department store Harrods in London.
Read the original article in English here.