Why wealthy think Kiwis live in the lap of luxury

The idea of what makes for an elite lifestyle is becoming increasingly fuzzy, writes Rob Stock .

LUXURY. No word means such different things to different people.

Sofia Ambler, owner of North Shore based helicopter business Heletranz, recalls the delight with which a family of super-rich tourists did something normally considered pretty near the bottom of human endeavours. They fed her pigs. They’d jetted in from Switzerland to tick New Zealand off their bucket list: exclusive lodges, helicopter travel, the finest food and experiences money could buy.

But it was feeding the newly born little porkers on Ambler’s lifestyle block that will be the abiding memory of their trip to our beautiful islands.

‘‘They said that was the best day they had in New Zealand in the whole trip,’’ Ambler says.

Wealthy folk from crowded European countries, or megacities, see something as uniquely Kiwi as a picnic on a deserted beach as something many of their peers can’t afford to experience.

‘‘In New Zealand, luxury is luxury experiences, the ability to go to a place where you feel like you are the first people to land by helicopter in an untouched land, to be the only person there,’’ Ambler says. ‘‘It’s being able to sit on a river bank and catch your trout and be able to cook it on a barbecue there and then. People do not come from cities like New York and Tokyo to buy luxury goods.’’

University of Auckland consumption specialist Yuri Seo spends his time understanding how marketers of luxury products can better attract customers and says one of the many paradoxes of modern luxury is that many luxury brands have gone mass-market.

‘‘Entry-level luxury,’’ as Seo dubs it, is now churned out in factories, and its exclusivity has waned.

‘‘You don’t have to be ultra rich to afford to buy a luxury bag. Maybe you can’t afford a Dior dress for $30,000, but you can afford a Dior perfume for $200.’’

That democratisation of luxury may be part of the reason the really rich are more into discreet luxury these days.

Ambler says ‘‘low-key’’ luxury is quite a New Zealand phenomenon.

For New Zealand’s wealthy,