Deluxe Dreams
and Nightmares
Is Macau a new beacon of luxury in the world? Absolutely not, says Sir David Tang. The Hong Kong born entrepreneur/columnist/billionaire who famously created and owned Shanghai Tang, was recently the guest of honour at a gala dinner hosted by the British Business Association of Macao (BBAM) to address the topic "The Misunderstanding of Luxury". Sir David spoke exclusively to Macau CLOSER about why he thinks the casino city has it so wrong when it comes to luxe. And he has a few remedies to offer.
Macau CLOSER: Sir David, how do you define luxury and why do you think it's misunderstood?
Sir David Tang: It's a relative concept, it's not an absolute concept and I'll go even further, I think it's actually in the mind and it's not something concrete. Therefore, if you were to say even to me: 'don't you think that a Rolex Oyster Perpetual with rounded diamonds is a luxury?', I would say to you: 'not necessarily.´ In the end I would tend to say that for a lot of people it is, but for some people, it isn't.
If you showed it to somebody on a desert island, and said: 'you can have anything you want, and here is the Rolex Oyster Perpetual,' they would not regard that, at that point, to be a luxurious item. Luxury by definition is something, which is superfluous, perhaps an indulgence, perhaps an extravagance, the opposite of a necessity, so it depends on people's needs. Therefore, if you accept that as relative concept, you then realize that pricing, for example, in the luxury business is a very superficial way of looking at it, because a great many people simply do not regard them as luxury. I, for one, would never regard something at VMH, in Louis Vuitton or Christian Dior or some other luxury shops as luxurious items, simply because I regard them as perfectly redundant to me. Another aspect that makes luxury a misunderstanding is that it is actually in the imagination. When I took my son to go and see David Hockney's exhibition and to meet him, he came away and said: 'that was the most luxurious moment in my life', and that was a sense of luxury, which has nothing to do with anything other than a transient piece of memory in his mind.
For me, being able to eat on my own, complete crosswords, and have a good meal in total silence is a huge luxury. And if you are a businessman, luxury should never be unitized. So you mustn't say: 'a luxurious house is the luxury of my life, but I really don't spend enough time in it.' The moment you say that, then you have misunderstood luxury, because the way luxury works is that when you want it, it is there, but you don't know when.
So considering all that, do you think that Macau has it right when it comes to luxury? No, I think it got it absolutely wrong.
Why is that?
Well, because it's incredibly vulgar as you can see. The problem with vulgarity is that it is easily detectable, by virtue of the ostentation and the declared extravagance. That's what the message says: you get free meals and get to see the best show in town, and they put you in the front row, and Frank Sinatra will appear, and Tony Bennett will start singing to you, and in the evening, three tall Russian blondes will accompany you up to your suite. It's all a complete dream and a complete fantasy, and it's a marketing ploy, to get you to what you consider to be a luxurious future. Well, it's phony, and if it is phony, it's not real and if it's not real, it can't be luxurious because luxury has to be something real. In Macau, you've only had 10 years of development, or 15 at most, where you want to create this place as a luxurious resort or a destination of luxury, and it's completely peddled on the idea of gambling wealth. What it suppresses is the destitution it brings when half the
people or even the majority of people lose, and they go back to their families. And you see the pawn shops here, and you see an ugly side of that which actually jars very much with the sense of success.
Would you consider opening here a China Club or a Tang restaurant, to educate people, and show them that there are other forms of luxury?
The main reason I wouldn't open here is because I don't come here very often. But your question invites me to think that, as you are living here, you want to see what people can do to make Macau a bit better, a bit more interesting. Well, there's only one answer: to bring interesting people. You've got to lure the right people here. Now, if you want this place to be a sophisticated place that people want to come to, want to flock to, you ought to bring interesting people. It's the people that make the place.
But how do you create a consistent social scene in a place like Macau?
It's money, but cleverly used. I´ll give you an example: if tomorrow you say to me: 'a Macanese woman is prepared to pay Mario Testino a million dollars for a portrait,' and I am hypothesizing, then you will have the newspapers around the world showing Mrs. De La Cruz at Santiago Lane in Macau, perched on top of Wynn casino being photographed by the famous Mario Testino for one million dollars, and that's a start. People would ask: 'what is this Macau place?` It's a 400 year-old Portuguese colony. So suddenly, people register. That's just a one-off event. The next thing you do is another stunt. Let's say, and I am dreaming now, Abba has turned down one billion dollars for a reunion. So get two billion and that's fine. How do you get Madonna to come? Has anybody approached her? Why isn't she coming here? It's people, people, people. You need characters. But who is taking all the money? It's the casino operators and the casino owners. The first thing I would do if I were you, is to say to them: 'you people have made a lot of money in a very short time out of Macau. It's about bloody time you put the same amount of money for the benefit of the local people, but also the city´. How much will it cost to bring Madonna and Lady Gaga here? No more than two or three million dollars. They can afford that. They make that sort of money. They should pledge a $100 million in order to stimulate the economy and to make this happen. That's what I would do.
You created Shanghai Tang, a Chinese brand that became hugely successful around the world.
I created products, which were good enough for people to want to buy.
Do you think China should create their own brands instead on relying so much on international ones?
They will. I am starting a company now, which is going to pick up the best of Chinese talents and the best manufacturing that will produce things, which will take over the world.
What is the name of the new company?
I am not going to say yet, but it will hit you soon, it's a very good name. If China is going to take over the world, which everybody believes it is, it's got to have the best talent. At the moment, there are ten thousand (Chinese) students, undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge and Durham, and all the great universities, and about 8000 of them come back to China. Where are they going to go? They've got to be the best of their generation today. So within 10 years, you are going to have a million students who are going to be extremely clever and they will have the benefit of a Western education and it gives them an idea of management, quality control and that is very important in the world today. You don't have research and development, which they have now started because when you are a growing nation you tend not to want to spend money on intangibles. You want to spend it on a refrigerator, a toaster or a rice cooker that you can see. But with the rising middle class, people don't want to buy the usual national rice cooker. I am going to remodel it for them. I am going to make it beautiful, so that you can have it in your open kitchen, which Chinese haven´t usually had until now. I want to have a toaster that you can see, so it doesn't burn. I am going to produce a lot of goods that, like the clothing industry, are going to be incredibly well made and very efficient. In fact, half of the Apple products are all already made in China. The technology is there and we are going to undercut and increase supply.
Who do you think is the public Chinese figure most in need of using your website "ICorrect" (www.icorrect.com, a website which allows public figures to set the record straight in regards to incorrect and/or false news about themselves), and why?
Anybody who is aggrieved. I think it's Henry Tang, probably (laughs).
The role of the British Business Association of Macao (BBAM) is to act as a conduit between government and business in Macao and the UK, creating business, networking and learning opportunities.
by Nuno Mendonça
translation by Jacky Cheong
photos by Carmo Correia
