Karl Lagerfeld announced Tuesday that he is canceling his Paris Fashion Week event under his own label, and instead, is launching mass prestige items for online sale. The combination of the words mass and prestige = masstige and has been described as prestige for the masses. According to Wikipedia, masstige is a marketing term meaning downward brand extension. The term was popularized by Michael Silverstein and Neil Fiske in their book Trading Up and Harvard Business Review article "Luxury for the Masses." Not to be too cynical, but truthfully, prestige is usually accorded to that which is in scarcity. So in other words, Karl, I guess one can never be too thin, or too rich. Visionary or Mercenary?
