Last week was the first week of classes. My roommate and I were able to navigate our way through and got to school 45 minutes before class started (talk about overachievers ?). The classes I am taking are all luxury classes so I was extremely excited because these types of courses are not offered at GW.
My first class was Luxury Retail Management in which we learn about how companies communicate their brand and strategies retail strategies to build the brand. There is a required group and individual project due at the end of the course. The group project consists of acting as a secret buyer at one of eight luxury brands who have a large presence in Paris, I picked Chanel (obviously). The individual project is a paper on how major brands are developing omni channel (bridging online and offline customer interactions), my company is Christian Louboutin (long heels red bottoms, long heels red bottoms).
The next class was International Luxury Distribution in which we learn about distribution strategies and business models of successful brands. This class also has a required group and individual project. The group project is to present the dynamics of multi brand distribution for multi-brand concept stores in EMEA. The individual paper is to analyze brand collaborations in a particular sector, my paper will be on Boucheron‘s jewelry collaborations.
Both courses are taught by Denis Morisett who was the former COO of Ralph Lauren Europe, CEO of Pierre Balmain, and Managing Director France of Armani, Director of Luxury Executive Programs, and has been teaching at ESSEC for over 20 years. Needless to say, this man has been around and knows what he is talking about. The courses complement each other in terms of content, in Management you learn how to brand is making its name online and offline and in Distribution you learn how the brand is getting its name across internationally.
The other class I am taking is Anthropology of Luxury Brands in which we learn about the evolution of human’s wants as it relates to luxury. I have never taken an anthropology class before, so I am excited to learn about what actually makes us want to want these crazy outrageously priced items and how have brands utilized these wants to create an empire for themselves. The professor is Simon Nyeck who has a great deal of knowledge in marketing, he received his PhD in Marketing from ESSEC, a Doctoral degree from Paris Dauphine University, GloColl Fellow on Participant-Centered Learning from Harvard Business School, and the list goes on.
The first day of class was so stimulating, I was learning about how all of the big names actually became big names. Hopefully one day I can be one of them :D
