Acting the rich bitch

Even the poshest shops and most exclusive brands are quietly cutting their prices, says Susan Daly

In September last year, an extraordinary party hit the headlines. Around 300 employees of the London branch of Lehman Brothers gathered in a bar near their offices. The bank whose $600bn (€460bn) collapse triggered the global financial crisis then treated its remaining staff to an evening of expensive wine and pink champagne -- a toast of sorts on the anniversary of the crash.

Few of us non-bankers are willing to be seen swilling champagne in public but there are signs that the demand for luxury products is warming up. LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods firm, recorded a 13pc jump in sales for the first quarter of 2010. Asia is a big market now for the status symbols LVMH purveys -- Louis Vuitton handbags, Tag-Heuer watches, Moet et Chandon, Krug and Don Perignon champagne -- but the firm reported that their European sales are also on the up.

"While I wouldn't say we are out of the woods, there is a lot more confidence around," says Stephen Sealey, managing director of high-end store Brown Thomas. "The accessories business is quite strong."

Some consumer watchers say we are indulging a pent-up desire for nice things. We've paid down some of our personal debt and we're bored of deprivation.

Sealey says that his well-heeled customers have snapped up premium-price items like Victoria Beckham's clothing range without hesitation (and you won't get change from €1,000 for an entry-level dress in that collection), or to-die-for wrist candy like the Mulberry Alexa, named for celebrity clothes horse du jour, Alexa Chung.

But while Sealey says that Brown Thomas "will never go down the route of cut-price and lower-end lines", there is evidence that looking and living like a millionaire has never been more accessible for the average Joe and Josephine. Brands and service providers have been forced to find ways of drawing us back in after 18 months of starving for custom.

"I would say that 90pc of retailers are committed to special offers and extra value packages," says Alan Gilligan of onoffer.ie, which has an online forum for consumers to tip each other off to bargain discoveries.

Brian Sargent, director of luxury holiday company Tropical Sky, says it is on track to double business this year over 2009 because punters are finding such value at the luxury end of the market. "We're talking a week in the Maldives at a four-star hotel, watersports, all-inclusives at €1,700 -- that kind of package would have been €2,800 last year," he says.

Fortune -- or saving one -- favours the bold, says Sargent.

"Many customers will now come in and say, 'What are you going to do for me for that price?' In the vast majority of cases now, you can negotiate another extra in there, maybe upgrade their hired car and so on. This year is a great one for travellers because the airlines have softened their prices and hotels are even more aggressively discounting."

Many areas of the luxury goods and services industry prefer the euphemism of "extra value" -- discounts are so crass, darling. So luxury hotels will offer extra nights of accommodation free, or include spa treatments in the overall price.

But there is no denying that in some cases, prices have simply been chopped.

Gilligan mentions one "very nice restaurant" in Dublin was recently offering a lunch deal that invited customers to toss a coin: heads, you pay; tails, lunch is free.

Golf clubs, too, the source of much snobbery and bragging rights in the Celtic Tiger years, are lobbing huge lumps off their prices. To take an extreme example, joining the exclusive Druids Glen club in Co Wicklow a few years ago would have involved finding a spare €50,000 for the joining fee. That fee has now been scrapped entirely and the annual membership costs €4,000.

An acquaintance tells me that he recently joined his local club for €5,000. His friend, who joined it in 2007, is raging because he paid €14,000 for his membership at the time. He feels like a Celtic cub who was sold a pup.

Were my acquaintance to toast his one-up-manship, he might plump for one of the many fine champagnes currently on special offer. Around Valentine's Day, a time when traditionally demand for bottles of bubbly kept prices at a premium, Bollinger was selling its Special Cuvee for a bargain €50 in O'Brien's off-licences. Bolly, one notes, is the only brand of bubbles that James Bond and Queen Victoria would allow tickle their tongue.

Pascal Rossignol, owner of Le Caveau speciality wine shop in Kilkenny city, says: "There have been some big discounts from the grands marques (the high-end champagne houses), fairly good discounts that we have been able to pass on to the customers."

We'll say cheers to that, but if you're going to look the Ab Fab part, you'll need to dress it too.

Kildare Village designer outlet opened in 2006, at the height of the spending frenzy here, but has managed to prove recession-resistant because contractually, everything has to be at least 33pc cheaper than recommended retail prices.

On a weekday morning, the newly opened Juicy Couture store there is packed with young, poker-haired women rifling through the plush velvet sportswear made famous on the pert backsides of stars like Eva Longoria, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Lopez and Madonna. This is not end-of-line, factory rejects stuff: Review kits itself out in a pair of on-trend, straight-leg DKNY dark denims for €69 and toys with a pair of classic Tom Ford aviators (one-third off the normal €300 asking price), as sported by the likes of Brad Pitt and Jessica Simpson.

The assistant in the sunglasses shop says that the Tom Ford line is proving particularly popular because they are understated and don't scream bling.

"People like their designer hit but they don't want to be seen flashing big logos any more. It looks fake," he confides.

And therein lies the key to tapping into the millionaire lifestyle: by all means look for the bargain but never, ever wear your labels on your sleeve.

TEN DEALS TO MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE A MILLIONAIRE
LIVING THE DREAM: The fact that it’s a buyer’s market out there is nowhere more obvious true than in property. Belmayne, a housing development near Donaghmede in north Dublin, tried to sell itself as Millionaire’s Row in 2007 when it jetted in football star Jamie Redknapp and his wife Louise to promote their apartments and houses.
A new developer has since taken over the latest phase of Belmayne and representatives Hooke and MacDonald tell Review that “we’re not selling a dream – everything is on the ground and looks a million dollars”. Nonetheless, a two-bed apartment in Belmayne is now up for grabs for e175,000 (a one-bed cost e275,000 in 2007) and a three-bed house now costs e220,000 (it was e365,000 in 2007).
MICHELIN MUNCHING: Even Michelin-starred restaurants are having to tempt diners. Bon Appetit in Malahide is one such spot and is offering three courses and a bottle of wine for two people for e75.
If it’s the drama of fine dining that appeals, you could always head to Conrad Gallagher (he of Peacock Alley infamy) in his new Salon des Saveurs restaurant on Aungier Street where set menus start at e24.
CHEERS! Moet et Chandon’s most recent glossy campaign had movie star Scarlett Johannson balancing a champagne glass between her perfectly manicured toes. Try re-creating her pose with a bottle of the brand’s bubbly for e38 from lecaveau.ie. “The same bottle of Moet was closer to e50 in mid-2008,” says wine importer Pascal Rossignol.
JEAN GENIES: A strange phenomenon of the Noughties was designers charging over e300 for the humble pair of jeans. Now, Rock & Republic denim, Victoria Beckham’s old favourite, has filed for bankruptcy. Paper Denim & Cloth brand, once worn by everyone from Cameron Diaz to the Olsen Twins, is relaunching as a reduced-rate line (around e80).
At the Kildare Village outlet of 7 For All Mankind, the ‘premium-denim’ brand favoured by Angelina Jolie, Reese Witherspoon and Ben Affleck, you can buy 3 pairs for the price of 2 (handy if you team up with two friends) and one e229 line is marked down to e69.
READY FOR YOUR CLOSE-UP? The modern equivalent of the oil painting over the mantlepiece is the photostudio session. If airbrushing is good enough for celebrity cover girls like Kate Winslet on GQ and Demi Moore on W magazine… The Photography Studio in Harold’s Cross, Dublin is offering a professional photo session for e220 (this service would have cost upwards of e400 three years ago according to onoffer.ie)
SLEEP ON IT: You might not be able to afford your own personal pillow-plumper, but Irish five-star hotel breaks are increasingly good value. The 5-star Hayfield Manor in Cork has in the past hosted the King of Jordan, the King of Malaysia, Mary Robinson and Mary McAlees, Pierce Brosnan, Diana Ross and Lionel Ritchie. Now they’ll put you up for two nights B&B, plus one 4-course dinner and a e50 voucher for spa treatments costs e228 per person. The same package was e350 in 2008.
ART ATTACK: When the financial crisis hit in late 2008, the market for expensive art sagged. While a Picasso might still be out of range for most of us, Dolan’s art auctions, the biggest provincial sales house, is now conducting their auctions without reserve prices. “I figure art should be accessible to a broader spectrum of the population,” says Dr Niall Dolan, “You should be able to come in with e300-e500 and come away with an interesting painting.” Dolan’s next auction is at the Marriott Hotel, Galway on Sunday, May 16.
GREENS WITH ENVY: Is there anything as civilized as a round with the boys, followed by steak and a fine Bordeaux in the club house? Golf club membership has dropped in price sharply at all levels. Luttrellstown Castle for example sported a mid-range annual fee of e7,000 in 2007, but is now asking for only e2,500 a year and is currently running a special rate of e1,500 for membership through the peak playing months of April to September.
AFRICAN QUEEN: Forget the Seychelles. Kenya, with its mix of beach and safari activities, is particularly popular with the likes of Bill Gates, Naomi Campbell and Bono. Lest we forget, it was in a villa in the south coast of Mombasa, Kenya, where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie first ignited their passion.
A combination of lower air fares and ‘added value’ accommodation deals have knocked down prices in the last year. “It’s not that it’s inexpensive exactly,” says Brian Sargent of tropicalsky.ie “but Kenya and Zanzibar are coming in at e1,000 less per person, to about e3,000 all in.”
JOIN THE CLUB: There was whining from some members of Residence private members’ club on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin last year when it was suggested that the ailing business might be offering cut-price membership deals. It is the case that many of these private members’ clubs have cut fees in a bid to refresh member numbers in the past few years. The thing to ask yourself though before trying to haggle your way past the velvet ropes is: Would I join any club that would have half the Law Library as members?

FIRST PUBLISHED HERE: http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/its-never-been-easier-to-live-like-a-millionaire-2172358.html

The money-happiness index

This was an interesting subject for the time that's in it - how closely linked are your levels of happiness with the bottom line of your bank balance?
Could have written a book on it - and might still do! - but here's a small overview from Wednesday's Irish Independent...

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/independent-woman/issues/can-having-too-much-money--really--make-you--miserable-2086198.html

Can having too much money really make you miserable?
Susan Daly ponders the question as a millionaire gives away his fortune

For those of us not rolling in it, the idiom that money can't buy happiness brings a certain comfort. But the notion that riches can make you actively unhappy? Would that we could all test that theory.

An Austrian multi-millionaire has done just that -- and claims his fat bank balance made him miserable. Karl Radeber has sold all his worldly possessions: his home; his luxury cars; his collection of glider planes; his €4m interior furnishings business -- and donated the proceeds to charity.

The process has left him feeling "free, the opposite of heavy", he says. "Money is counter-productive -- it prevents happiness to come."

Radeber is no bored trust-fund baby, playing at being penniless for kicks. He came from a poor family and built his business from scratch. The accumulation of money, he says, made him chronically dissatisfied.

"I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need."

Radeber's story seems to back up what is known in the literature on human happiness as the Easterlin Paradox. In 1974, economist Richard Easterlin found that once income was sufficient to meet a person's basic needs, happiness did not necessarily increase incrementally with income. It reaches a plateau.

That research was challenged by a 2008 study that linked higher incomes to higher happiness -- but it did add that once a certain point was reached, the rate of increasing happiness slowed.

"I think that what is happening in the economy right now is leaving people more open to the concept of what is enough," says Dr Anne B Ryan of NUI Maynooth, author of Balancing Your Life and Enough Is Plenty. "The Irish phrase 'go leor' has the dual meaning of 'enough' and 'plenty'. There is an optimum and more than that isn't necessarily helpful."

Dr Ryan's first book, Balancing Your Life, was written at the height of the Celtic Tiger in 2002. What she discovered from her case studies was that working harder for money generated a "treadmill" effect.

"People were so tired by their hectic loves that they spent money to compensate for it," she says. "They bought themselves 'treats', massages, retail therapy, ate out or bought expensive ready-meals.

"The people who said they had satisfying lives were often living on what would be considered smallish incomes. The pay-off for them was free time to do voluntary work, work that really interested them or time for loved ones."

It would be glib to suggest that someone facing foreclosure on their house or someone on the poverty line in a slum in Guatemala is happier than Richard Branson. Yet even in dire poverty, the key to happiness is not necessarily money.

Research in Costa Rica between 2004 and 2006 found that not all people who were considered poor recorded low levels of life satisfaction.

Those who came out of poverty were as likely to be unhappy if they were dissatisfied in other areas -- family, health, how much they liked their job.

A famous 1978 study pitted the happiness levels of a group of lottery winners against a group of people who were paralysed in accidents. Both groups experienced a drastic shift in happiness in the initial months after the event -- those paralysed were often thrown into deep depression, while the lottery winners existed in a state of euphoria.

After that period, the injured's state of happiness returned to levels akin to those they experienced before their accidents. The ecstasy also wore off for the lottery winners but most seemed unable to find happiness in the mundane things that had previously brought them joy.

That is not to say that money can't bring happiness -- it's just a case of spending it correctly.

In what the field of positive psychology would dub 'pro-social spending', spending money on creating memories brings a long-lived joy that buying goods just can't match. Bringing your partner out to dinner or buying a ticket to see a concert with friends is a good emotional investment: buying a designer dress doesn't have the same psychological return.

Richard Branson is a good case of one who spreads his billions to bring maximum joy. His extravagances are in sponsoring football teams, buying a Caribbean island retreat for friends and family, and indulging his love of adventure sports -- the purchase of experiences over things.

He is also a prominent philanthropist, something which Jordan Campbell of Philanthropy Ireland says brings satisfaction when the donor is inspired by the causes to which they give.

"I think it is part of our human instinct to look after each other," says Campbell, "and that has the side-product of making us feel good."

Philanthropy is not just for billionaires -- any regular contribution of time or resources is the kind of sustained giving at which ordinary Irish folk excel.

"Money in itself can only bring you so far. Chuck Feeney (the Irish-American billionaire who transferred the bulk of his fortune to his Atlantic Philanthropies) says that his philosophy is that once your basic needs are met, well, what are you going to do with the rest of it?"

Economically we might be devastated, but emotionally we might just recover.

"We are becoming more financially intelligent and not calling it penny-pinching," says Dr Anne B Ryan.

Should our economic circumstances improve, Frances Feeney (no relation to Chuck) of Social Capital Ireland suggests we might be wiser to how to enjoy it.

"Companies are starting to look to invest in interesting projects that might yield a blended return, financial and social. People still want to make money -- but they want it to count socially too."

All profits from sales of Enough is Plenty by Dr Anne B Ryan (see www.enoughisplenty.net) go to sustainable economics foundation Feasta.

• “People ask why I don’t charge for my expertise – where’s the fun in that?”
Landscape gardener PETER DONEGAN

“I’m not stupid with the euro in my pocket but some of the things I most enjoy I do for free. Recently I took a group of people around the war memorial gardens in Islandbridge. My wife made country apple pie and we had coffee in flasks, and we have another trip coming up to Ireland’s Eye. But what people kept bouncing back to me afterwards was: Why didn’t you charge for it?
I don’t get that. I competed at the Irish Conker Championships last year just for fun. It’s like I won’t put a shop on my blog (www.doneganlandscaping.com) because that’s not why I do it. I’d say 50 per cent of the phone calls I get are for free gardening advice, and I’ve been on the garden side of things on the Niall Mellon trips. I’m going to sound like a martyr but for me, it’s just not the point of life to always have to tie in everything you do to paying the bills.”

• “Our baby has shown me that family, love, joy give a life its value”
Ice-cream maker KIERAN MURPHY

“During the Celtic Tiger people talked about money all the time, and now we’re past it people still talk about it all the time. There are all these other things that give a life value: family, love, joy.
I know budgets are shrinking – we’ve just had a baby so I’m quite aware of it. But compared to what joy the baby has given me, the financial stresses pale.
My brother and I didn’t get into making ice-cream for money exactly – we did it because we love sweet things. No-one actually needs an ice-cream but it transcends that. People come into us because they are either happy to start with or they want to be cheered up.”

• “I never worked for the money – but now I’m very aware I need it”
TV and radio producer/director PAT O’MAHONY
“When I was a nipper, I did stuff because I wanted to do stuff. In the ’80s we were living in one big recession but I left jobs I was making good money in because I hated them.
Now I’m not that fussy – I can’t afford to be. I’ve never, ever worked for money but now I’m very aware I need money. There is a minimum basic amount that people need and it varies from person to person. I have a young lad now in college and this is not a good time to be broke.
I’m nearly 49 and for the first time, I’m thinking, Come back that money I used to earn! I left Head2Toe (RTE fashion show Pat presented) after five years because it was time for something else.
I know people who are extremely money-driven and I don’t understand that attitude of ‘I need loads of cash and I need you all to know that I have loads of it’. But I will say I’m no longer the footloose and fancy-free kid I was. It’s very easy to be a middle-class hippie when you’re young.”

Jesus loves her more than she will know. Whoa oh oh.

Iris Robinson - the gift that keeps on giving

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/sugarmummy-affair-with-man-just-a-third-of-her-age-is-the-stuff-soap-writers-dream-about-2006227.html

After the dust settles on this sad and tawdry story of the toyboy, forbidden sex and funny money, how will the ruined Robinsons bear to face each other across the breakfast table, asks Susan Daly

Saturday January 09 2010

IT is horribly appropriate that while the misadventures of Iris Robinson were playing out so publicly on BBC's 'Spotlight' programme on Thursday night, a quick flick of the channels would have alighted on the actress Stephanie Beacham queening it up on 'Celebrity Big Brother'.

Beacham, as any 1980s TV drama fan will tell you, is most famed for her role as Sable Colby in 'The Colbys', glamorous matriarch of a power-hungry family dynasty. For all the fundamentalist rigour of the Robinson religious creed, it appears that Iris had been modelling her lifestyle on the flamboyant big-haired Sable.

So outlandish are certain elements of the Robinson affair that it is hard to believe they exist outside the mind of a soap opera screenwriter. A cross-generational affair between a 19-year-old and a woman three times his age. Murky insinuations of sugar-mummy donations. Hellfire evangelism undermined by breathtaking hypocrisy.

Like Peter Robinson's televised statement about his wife's doings, the unfolding story is excruciating to watch but impossible not to. Impossible, too, not to wonder open-mouthed at the motivation behind the then 58-year-old Iris -- handsomely well-preserved woman though she is -- taking a 19-year-old into her bed.

Her own three young adult children are of the same generation as her former lover, Kirk McCambley. As if that were not toe-curling enough -- "icky" is the technical term, I believe -- McCambley's father was a friend of the Robinsons. Close to death, he apparently asked Iris to take care of his son. In what we can only hope was a confusion of maternal affection for attraction, the relationship between Iris and Kirk took off a few months after the funeral.

"She looked out for me to make sure I was okay," McCambley told 'Spotlight'.

What are we to make of McCambley?

The death of a parent can be deeply traumatic. It could drive a vulnerable young man to seek comfort in the most unlikely of quarters. Yet he is clearly no fool. He had won a young entrepreneur of the year award by his late teens. Robinson's help with arranging a £50,000 (€55,000) business deal gave him an enviable leg-up in starting his own restaurant.

As for Robinson's "inappropriate" behaviour, as it was coyly dubbed by husband Peter, it is not clear if it was the result of, or resulted in, the mental difficulties that drove her to a suicide attempt last March.

There has been much schadenfreude expressed over Bible-thumper Iris being hoisted by her own moralistic petard. It's almost too delicious -- the woman who believes homosexuality to be such an "abomination" that it makes her feel "nauseous" rides roughshod over several of the Commandments she so cherishes.

And yet: how to banish the niggling feeling that any person in such distress that they try to kill themselves deserves our compassion? Not aggression veiled as compassion, mind, as per Mrs Robinson's offer to recommend a good psychiatrist who could "fix" gay people. We are better than that, even if she isn't.

In the end, it doesn't really matter if the public accepts Mrs Robinson's display of self-flagellation or buys into her husband's statement of "love the sinner, not the sin". Three months down the line, Mr Robinson's political fate will have been decided one way or another.

If he's lucky, he will still be First Minister, having been found guilty of nothing more than standing by his woman.

Or he may be found negligent of his public duty, of not alerting the relevant watchdogs to his wife's lack of disclosure to the donations she sought for her lover.

That decided, the spotlight which the Robinsons themselves shone on their home with their pre-emptive revelations of infidelity will have moved on. They will be alone at their breakfast table, 40 years of marriage behind them and the dark chasm of an uncertain future together yawning in front of them.

Mr Robinson has said he still loves his wife. He referred to the years she stood by him in the political wilderness, the children she bore him.

Having made his moral beliefs very much part of his political policies, he has given himself no choice but to stand by her now that she has 'fessed up and begged forgiveness. That's the Christian thing to do, isn't it?

Yet when Mr Robinson made his statement about her affair, you had to wonder what his obviously genuine tears were for -- surely not for the betrayal about which he has now known for 10 months?

The carefully placed card from his children 'To Dad' on the bookshelf behind him said it all: Don't ever forget who the victim is here. And it's not her.

It was interesting how quickly his "we" turned to "I" when it came to defending his wife on anything other than sexual matters.

The affair he can theologise away -- the brass tacks of any funny money, he can't.

And what of Iris? A woman whose tastes in sports cars and lavish interior design contributed to the "Swish Family Robinson" tag the pair acquired in a report on their MPs' expenses last year is unlikely to want to prostrate herself in contrition forever.

A show of public unity is all well and good -- but if unhappiness and resentment reign in private, it will make for a bitterly divided home.