From the Publisher: Every December, LinkedIn editors ask its community of influencers, top voices and frequent contributors to share the Big Ideas they believe will define the year ahead. This year, in the shadow of a once-in-a-century pandemic, the business-focused social media platform offers a selection of predictions and thoughts on where we go from here — at work, at home and everywhere in between. #BigIdeas2021
Cartier CEO Cyril Vigneron contributed this article, well let’s call it a vignette, to the series. We liked it so much, we bring you a full reprise.
COVID-19 has distorted our perception of time, writes Cyril Vigneron.
We only think of time as elapsed time. We should also think of its impact on matter: not how long one has lived but how old one’s body is, or how much a city has changed. Shanghai has changed much faster than Geneva in the past 20 years. Same elapsed time but different pace.
We think we cannot act on time. Yet we have invented time machines: the freezer to stop time, the microwave to resume it. We are currently accelerating climate change, doing in decades what our planet takes milleniums to do.
By interrupting many human activities, COVID-19 has distorted many dynamics. Travel retail stopped, Ecom is booming. Fast fashion has been disrupted and has slowed down, while classic fashion accelerates.
In Jewelry, timeless designs show the highest resilience as they do not depend on seasonality and can sustain slowness.
Paradoxically, hard luxury has already landed softly while soft luxury has been hit hard. COVID will probably reveal true luxury. It already shines a light on the virtuous resilience of slowness and lasting beauty for luxury.
