What is Relish?

It's a new magazine covering the luxury home market from the editors of Furniture/Today, Home Accents Today, Home Textiles Today, Casual Living and Gifts & Decorative Accessories.

From Relish editor in chief Ray Allegrezza:

Our goal is to bring you a magazine that not only celebrates outstanding design and designers, but one that also chronicles the burgeoning and changing luxury market from a no-nonsense business perspective.

Our lead story [in the inaugural Fall 2006 issue], which provides a detailed overview of this arena, captures the major shift within this segment when it reports that, "While the number of wealthy people in the United States is increasing, getting them to buy high-end furnishings and home accents is not a simple task..."

Much of this challenge centers on a changing consumer base and changing perceptions and definitions of luxe.

Back in the day, the good life often conjured up images of old-money Palm Beach, yachts and the obligatory Rolls or Bentley graciously parked under the portico.

Today, while the luxe ride and bling-bling boat may still be in the picture, the owner is just as likely to be single, in his or her 30s and live in a condo.

Or, today's highly affluent shopper may live in a McMansion and drive her luxury vehicle, but shop at Costco to save a few dollars.

And not only are today's luxe shoppers more diverse and quirky than ever in their shopping patterns, they are better informed and subsequently more demanding.

Make no mistake: The fact that they are highly affluent and relish the good life in no way precludes their appetite for value and a good deal.

I recently spoke about this with Greg Furman, founder of the Luxury Marketing Council, who agreed, "Brand can't live on brand alone, because today's luxury customer has become increasingly value-driven and more demanding of superior service and personalized understanding of her wants."

While that represents a tall order, it gets even tougher, Furman said. Luxury consumers want the best of the best and want to know why the best of the best is the best, he said.

So, in the event you were unsure about what the luxe customer is after, now you know: she wants it all. She wants value, she wants personalized service, she wants the experience and she wants what she perceives to be the best.

That's a tall order to fill, but one well worth the effort. Statistics show that while overall annual retail growth has been in the 4%-6% range for the past 10 years, luxury items during that same time period have grown from 20%-32%.

Throw in the fact that for a growing number of consumers, luxury home furnishings and home accents represent the essential ingredients in the recipe for the good life, and we all have something to relish.

If your objective is to grow your share of the luxury market, the mission of Relish is to help you up that path with information designed to facilitate your climb all the way to the top.