Monday, January 27, 2020
Development of Luxury Products: Montblanc
Development of Luxury Products: Montblanc Dissertation subject: a. Montblanc. Its development in the luxury industry OK b. The Montblancs brand extension in the luxury industry OK c. Montblanc brand: from a specialised luxury brand to a global luxury brand 2.             Dissertation issue / key question: a. Did Montblanc, a specialised luxury brand in the writing instrument segment, extend its perception of luxury brand to its other product categories? OK b. Has Montblanc, a specialised luxury brand in the writing instrument segment, been successful in extending this perception to its other product categories? 3.             Literature review: a. Definition of luxury: * Different points of view * Key words/concepts (to be tested in the survey) b. Definition of luxury brand c. Concept of diversification strategy: * Objectives * Types * Drivers to be successful (consumer perception / reaction) * Performance (to which extent) * Montblanc:  strategic diagnosis (SBU) d. Brand extension  Luxury brand perception: * (How to measure it? Consumers reaction) 4.             The research: a. Key question: can a specialised luxury brand extend its perception of luxury brand to other product categories? The case of the Montblanc brand.Today, is Montblanc a global luxury brand (not anymore a specialised luxury brand)? Therefore how was it possible? Well know reputation in its core business (for quality, design, social status) and the choice of neighbouring segments. b. Hypothesis: Montblanc is today an established global luxury brand. Montblanc is a clear example of a successful brand extension. How was it possible? (Reputation, tradition, quality, Montblanc extended its way of doing business based on quality and style next to its outstanding reputation in its historical core business) 5.             The research: a. Objective: To prove that Montblanc has been able, in a relatively short time, to become a global luxury brand. 6.             The research method: a. Which is the information to be collected in order to answer the issue discussed within our work and to verify the hypothesis?  the consumers perception of the Montblanc brand (the only boss) and the point of view of the Montblancs managers (figures on diversification mix, and resources allocated) b. How to collect the data (survey, interviews)? c. Which is the pitch of the research? Luxury sector, Montblanc and its major competitors in jewellery / watches / leather categories, luxury brand current and potential consumers. Becker, Howard S. (1998), Tricks of the trade, How to think about your research while youre doing it, The University of Chicago Press. 7.             Analysis of the research findings: a. Analyse and understand the collected data  as usually it helps identify some factors that may answer our issue, although often these elements are not complete b. Criticise the research method and its limits (limited sample) 8.             Conclusion: a. Buyers of Montblanc products (not only writing instruments): confirm the hypothesis b. Buyers of only Montblanc writing instruments  to gain tradition in watch and jewellery segments requires times although a good quality but not impossible c. Montblancs managers: good results so far. Recommendations: a. Montblanc has to go on investing in its diversification strategy because failing in doing so would be highly risky for its brand perception among the final consumers. Could Montblanc extend its perception to other product categories? Not right now: low resources and need to be definitively established as a luxury brand in key categories such as watches and jewellery. Write: * la probl ©matique involves the key question, the hypothesis of the research and the elements / factors which will help to develop the chosen subject.This first part includes the definition of the subject, the review of the literature (plus bibliography), the question, the hypothesis and the method of the research other than the action plan. * Final dissertation: develop the different topics without any linking parts, add these linking parts, further develop underestimated parts and cut what is useless. Add the table of contents, bibliography, appendix, etc. Executive Summary * The research and its Interest * The key question and the hypothesis * Research method * Major findings * Conclusion * Recommendations The purpose of this research paper is to investigate if and how a specialised luxury brand can extend its perception of luxury brand to other products categories. Being the luxury industry so wide of dimensions, the researcher decided to focus on one specific brand: Montblanc. This choice permitted to closer define the pitch of the analysis in order to carry out a reliable and feasible research that might prove the success of the diversification strategy pursued by the Montblanc brand. Montblanc represents, indeed, an interesting case study to show how the diversification strategy can be an effective tool to increase the luxury brand perception among the final customers. Montblanc, market leader for what concerns the writing instruments, has been striving during the last few years to definitively become a global luxury brand. To do so, Montblanc entered many different segments of the luxury world, such as leather, watches, fragrance and eyewear in the last â‚ ¬Ã‹Å"90s and the silver jewellery at the beginning of the 21st century. Moreover, a couple of years ago, Montblanc stepped forward into the fine jewellery business which is seen as the critical step in its strategic development to attain the full status of global luxury brand. In order to verify how the Montblanc brand is viewed and perceived in its competitive environment, the researcher adopted both a quantitative and a qualitative research method. On one hand, a customer survey consisted of XXX questions was developed. This survey submitted to actual and potential customers had the objective to impartially investigate the customer perception of the Montblanc brand. On the other hand, in-depth interviews with some Montblancs managers were carried out. The interviewed, who represented different levels of the Montblancs management, allowed the researcher to gain a full picture of the Montblanc brand and its strategic movements. Moreover the direct comparison with the Montblancs management was important to identify on which resources and competences the final recommendations could be based. For practical purposes, this study can be divided in five major parts: 1. the first part outlines the theme and the key question of the research paper; 2. the second part concerns the review of the literature as regards the following points: the definition of luxury and of luxury brands, some approaches to measure the brand perception / the reasons why people buy luxury goods (status-laden or conspicuousness-laden), and the diversification strategy. This part will be concluded with an in-depth analysis of the Montblanc brand; 3. the third part gives a fulfilling view of the undertaken research with particular attention to the objective, the hypothesis and the research method; 4. the fourth part covers the relevant findings coming from the analysis of the research results; 5. the last part presents the conclusions of the study and the researchers final recommendations to the brand. The theme of the research paper Luxury and the Montblanc brand gives an important insight of the key constructs at the core of the work. In first position one finds the term luxury whose meaning and definition are almost fuzzy. It is the reason why, this work will examine some important findings coming up from the literature so wide in this respect, at the end of which some major traits of the definition of luxury will be underlined. Especially, the literature review will cover the evolution of the definition of luxury all along the recent history. To be noticed that, the construct of luxury will be also investigated in the survey submitted to the final customers and also in the interviews to the Montblancs management and other practitioners of the luxury industry. This research, carried out by exploring both the customers and the professionals point of view, enriches the research itself and helps to get a good understanding of the major characteristics emerging nowadays about this fascinating concept. To be clarified that this study, focusing on the Montblanc brand, is related to a part of the luxury market such as t he accessories, jewellery and watches segments. The second part of the theme of this study is represented by three words: the Montblanc brand. This recalls two topics. The first one refers to the term brand. By revising the literature, a definition of brand will be proposed. In this respect, there are not important doubts and we will briefly comment the definition of brand recently provided by Jevons (2007). Nevertheless, some issues may arise for the definition of luxury brand which is obviously related to the construct of luxury. The expression the Montblanc brand as a whole, moreover, puts the attention on the leader German brand whose unmistakable star logo is worldwide the icon of quality and excellence. As previously said, the researcher chose a specific brand to be able to concretely study the fundamental question of his research paper that will be clarified in the next lines. To be noticed that the two parts of the theme title luxury and the Montblanc brand are tied up by the conjunction and that underlines the strict link between luxury and the Montblanc brand. Nevertheless, this link requires a further consideration because it can be misleading if not misunderstood. Which is the real mean of this linkage? There are no doubts that Montblanc is a luxury brand; but is it a specialised luxury brand or a global luxury brand? This question is strictly connected to the core issue of this master thesis. More precisely, the driver question is if a specialised luxury brand can extend its perception of luxury brand to other product categories. In order to answer this key issue, the researcher chose to study a well-known brand which has been pursuing a diversification strategy to become a global luxury brand. The construct of diversification strategy will be explained from a literature point of view. Moreover, an in-depth analysis of the Montblanc brand and its strategic business areas will be undertaken by applying some tools learned during the studies at the ESCP Europe especially during the modules of strategy and of strategic diagnostic. This becomes fundamental to better understand in which kind of diversification strategy Montblanc is engaged and to give a wide knowledge to the reader about the brand itself. To conclude, herein the reasons why the student chose this theme for his master thesis. There are three major reasons bringing to this choice. The first one refers to the luxury world. The construct of luxury, albeit widely analysed in the literature, remains somehow mysterious. Today, the definition of luxury is strongly evolving mainly due to the economic uncertainty mostly caused by the financial crisis of 2008. Therefore, although the probability to uniquely define luxury is very low if not nil, the challenge to better understand what luxury is/means/represents/is perceived nowadays represents to the researcher a great topic of interest. His interest in luxury is also nourished by the will to work in this sector in the upcoming future. This surely stems from the professional experiences made by the student as part of his studies within companies (Montblanc and Concord) operating in the jewellery, watches and accessories segments. Indeed, during these experiences, the student was impressed by this world rather mysterious where the care of the smallest detail makes a huge difference. The second reason concerns the Montblanc brand. The researcher had the chance to work for five months at Montblanc International, at the Headquarter in Hamburg within the Jewellery Category Department, and for three months at Montblanc UK, in London within the Retail Department. During this extremely positive experience, the student discovered in-depth this fascinating brand, from its tradition to its vision, from a strategic and more operational point of view. Surely the experience personally gained at Montblanc became highly useful in the development of the research and mainly in the analysis of the brand and of its strategy. Moreover the ongoing meetings/interviews with the Montblancs management had a double advantage. On one hand, it enriched the content of the study and on the other hand helped the student maintain the contacts with a firm that is at the top of his personal ranking of his employment research. The third reason concerns the strategic aspect behind this theme. Indeed, the diversification strategy pursued by Montblanc offered to the student the possibility to develop this construct often used/abused by luxury brands to extend their perception of luxury and, as a consequence, to finally increase their revenues. The diversification strategy has often been the object of strong discussions, mainly for what regards the results of pursuing this strategy and the ways of implementing it. This work has got the objective to rationalise the different types of diversification strategy and to investigate this theoretical concept on a concrete case study, thanks to the study of the Montblanc brand. This research will focus on the key factors of success or failure standing from the analysis of the diversification strategy pursued by Montblanc. Did Montblanc, a specialised luxury brand in the writing instrument segment, extend its perception of luxury brand to its other product categories? This key question gives a stricter view on the content of this research paper. This study will focus on the strategic development of a specialised luxury brand as Montblanc was/is in the writing instrument segment since its origin. In detail, the research has got the purpose to investigate how the Montblanc brand is nowadays perceived from the final customers. The findings coming up from the customer survey will help the researcher evaluate if the Montblanc brand is still perceived as a specialised luxury brand or if its image has developed to the status of a global luxury brand. The customers responses represent indeed the most reliable feedback to assess the degree of success of the diversification strategy pursed by Montblanc in the last years which has brought the brand to operate in relevant luxury segments such as leather, watches, fragrance, eyewear and jewellery next to the historical business area of writing instruments. At a second stage, the customers responses will be compared with the Montblanc managements point of view in order to verify if some discrepancies exist. This step is important to get a full picture of the Montblanc brands standing. Then, after an accurate presentation of the research, the student will point out the major findings in order to draw his conclusions about his study. The conclusions will include the major factors of the diversification strategy pursed by Montblanc to extend its perception of luxury brand to other segments in the luxury industry, in addition to the fields of improvement coming out of the research. Finally this research paper will present the students recommendations which will take into account the strategic objectives standing out from the interviews with the Montblancs management and also the Montblanc brand perception outlined by the customer survey. In the next pages, the student will study, by starting from the literature review, some key concepts at the core of this research paper which include: * the definition of luxury and its evolution; * the definition of luxury goods; * the definition of brand and of luxury brands; * briefly the different approaches to measure the brand perception among the final customers.> the reasons why people buy luxury goods (status or conspicuousness); * and the presentation of the diversification strategy: the objectives, the different types, the advantages and the drawbacks, the risks, and the key success factors. The literature review, as said, will be completed by the contextualisation of these constructs to the Montblanc brand. At this stage the Montblanc brand will be studied in order to give all the required basics to launch the following research. In order to better define the constructs at the core of this research paper that will give the background of the following research, an in-depth literature review will be made. Four major concepts will be discussed thanks to the support of different literature material which includes insights from books, articles, management and fashion websites and personal references in terms of power point presentations, excel documents and excel files. The activity of research consisted mainly in going through the databases accessible from the Intranet at ESCP Europe in order to directly access to a wide range of reference material. The definition of luxury The first part of the literature review regards the construct of luxury. Luxury has always been a central field of research. Indeed its specific characteristics have attracted the interest of the researchers all along the history. However, albeit the meaning of luxury is widely discussed in the literature, researchers did not come up with a commonly accepted definition of this construct. For sure, it is not possible to uniquely define luxury. Simply, the words do not seem to be able to describe what luxury means. In this respect, the literature leaves this concept shrouded in mystery. This research paper will face the definition of luxury by going through different steps. At the beginning some different definitions of luxury will be put forward by touching its literal and economic meaning, and also by exploring some philosophical and social interpretations. Then, an interesting brief explanation of the etymology of the term luxury will be presented. Afterwards, the history of luxury will be outlined before entering in more detailed considerations regarding the notions of old and new luxury. At the end of this first part, the student will show the latest development of the luxury construct by getting important insights from the practitioners point of view founded in articles related to the luxury world. Literal definition of luxury Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913): Anything which pleases the senses, and is also costly, or difficult to obtain; an expensive rarity.'[1] [2] Economic definition of luxury Mason (81): Un produit est consid ©r © comme luxueux si l ©lasticit © de la demande par rapport au revenu est sup ©rieure  1. Philosophers definition of luxury Paul Iribe (1932): Luxe: besoin qui commence o ¹ finit la n ©cessit ©.'[3] Voltaire (1694-1778): Superflu chose tr ¨s n ©cessaire. Jaime le luxe et m ªme la mollesse. Rousseau: Le luxe doit  ªtre rejet © car il est contraire aux exigences de la nature. Sociology researchers definition of luxury Bourdieu (79,84): Comme tout acte de consommation, lachat dune marque de luxe est un moyen daffirmer sa position sociale, de faire croire  un changement de position ou prouver un changement de position sociale. Tout d ©pend du r ´le que lindividu joue ou pense jouer au sein de son groupe de r ©f ©rence. Baudrillard (68): Lacc ¨s au luxe est d ©termin © par une volont © sociale de se distinguer, de se d ©marquer ou bien encore de saffilier  un groupe. Suivant le groupe social auquel la personne se r ©f ¨re, le luxe aura une signification diff ©rente. Maffesoli (96): Lanalyse du luxe par le prisme des classes ne prend pas en compte le resserrement des individus autour de groupes restreints, de tribus. La consommation devient alors un plaisir personnel et intime, sans volont © ostentatoire. Management researchers definition of luxury Gutsatz M. (96): Le luxe comprend deux niveaux de repr ©sentation. Le premier niveau est mat ©riel, il comprend le produit et la marque (son histoire, son identit ©, son savoir faire unique, le talent). Le second niveau est psychologique. Il sagit de repr ©sentations qui nous sont propres, influenc ©s par notre milieu social et les valeurs de la marque. Roux E. (91): La marque de luxe se caract ©rise par une valeur ajout ©e symbolique, imaginaire ou sociale qui la diff ©rencie des autres. La marque de luxe correspond ainsi aux besoins symboliques que le consommateur peut ressentir (par opposition aux besoins fonctionnels ou de vari ©t ©). Laurent G., Dubois B. (95): Le luxe est subjectif, personnel et perceptuel. Si lon cherche  d ©terminer les attributs caract ©risant un produit de luxe, 6 dimensions apparaissent : Une qualit © sup ©rieure et per §ue, un prix  ©lev ©, une s ©lectivit © et une raret © des produits et de la distribution, un pouvoir attractif important un savoir faire certain et la non n ©cessit ©. Practitioners definition of luxury Coco Chanel: Le luxe est le contraire de la vulgarit ©. Boucheron A.: Le luxe est une  « mayonnaise  » constitu ©e de diff ©rents ingr ©dients. Si lun dentre-eux manque ou est mal dos ©, la mayonnaise tourne. Le luxe est un concept et non un produit.[4] Jean-Louis Dumas-Herm ¨s, historic Chairman and CEO of Herm ¨s: [5] Just by analysing these few definitions of luxury, one can notice the absolute subjectivity of this concept. It stands out that luxury has got a close linkage with pleasure, rarity, exclusivity, quality, high price tag. Economists define luxury as something which is unnecessary, statement which would be probably argued by some studies on the consumers reasons to buy luxury. For someone (Rousseau) luxury should even be avoided because it is not a primary need of the human being. Luxury is something that belongs to the inner part of each individual but it can be also highly other-oriented. By wearing or experiencing luxury items, an individual expresses his own personality and can show his social status and position in the community. The fact is that luxury is probably a bit of everything, a perfect trade off of opposite concepts. This makes luxury a kind of mystery. After this round-up, the study will briefly present the etymology of the term luxury before briefing touching the historical evolution of luxury. Etymology of word luxury According to Dubois, Czellar and Laurent (2005) the English term[6] luxury is derived from the Latin luxus, which, according to the Oxford Latin Dictionary, it signifies soft or extravagant living, (over-)indulgence and sumptuousness, luxuriousness, opulence; luxus also means sensuality, splendour and its derivative luxuria is extravagance, riot etc. Merriam-Websters Dictionary defines luxuriance as something characterized by richness and extravagance, often tending to excess. The word luxury is also often semantically associated with lux the Latin word for light; therefore, luxury carries connotations of brightness. It is glittering and, in addition, it is something visible. The evolution of luxury Until the Middle Ages the writings point out that luxury was the reflection of the religious mystery that drives the human being to go beyond himself driven by an offer or a sign. But the heyday of luxury is without any doubt the Renaissance (15th and 16th century), flourishing period for literature, art and science. This period reflects the explosion of luxury, vogue of the ostentatious architecture coming from Italy. At that time, luxuries are exclusive items belonging to the aristocracy and the court. During the Renaissance luxury becomes the prerogative of the bourgeoisie. During the 18th and 19th century luxury remains exclusive of the  ©lite. The 20th century signs an important step in the evolution of luxury. Mainly after the Second World War luxury becomes almost conformist, not extravagant or eccentric. In the â‚ ¬Ã‹Å"80s, the focus is on the luxury consumer; in this time, younger period discover luxury thanks to the accessories. At the end of this decade, there is the boom of luxury for what concerns the distribution channel development. The major players widen their reach by exploiting the markets where they are present and even by entering new markets. At the beginning of the â‚ ¬Ã‹Å"90s, the crisis that hit also the luxury industry, pushed to rethink the concept of luxury that gained a higher spiritual/moral meaning in addition to the impeccable quality.[7] Old-luxury vs New-luxury With the 21st century, new terms about luxury are emerging in the practitioners literature. For the purpose of this research paper, in the next few lines some considerations will be made on the expression of old luxury in opposition to new luxury in order to clarify their meaning. Some practitioners argue that old luxury is about the good itself and is defined by the company, in opposition to This seems to trace a clear line between the two concepts: old luxury is about the material thing, it is about stuff. Instead, new luxury is about experiencing. Nowadays, it seems evident that old luxury cannot anymore survive. The high quality of luxury products is assumed by consumers who are looking forward for something more. In our time, luxury is increasingly defined as those special qualities, features and attributes intrinsic to a product and that go beyond the item itself. According to Ms. Danziger (2008)[9], the product itself does not anymore create personal fulfilment. Today, luxury is in the eye of the beholder and the consumers perceptions are not anymore, exclusively depending on the exceptional quality of luxury products and on the high price tag. This does not mean that the materialism is not important but only that consumers are eager of experiences. Therefore, as a consequence, a shift from product-centric to consumer-centric point of view becomes inevitable to attract luxury consumers. The needed clarification of old luxury and new luxury concepts will become also useful when the study will discuss the definition of luxury brands and in the research of the consumers perception of the Montblanc brand which will lead to the students recommendations at the end of this research paper. At this point, it becomes interesting to see how the todays definition of luxury has evolved in the light of the recent events occurred in autumn 2008 which had an important impact on the entire economy and, therefore, also on the luxury industry. Todays definition of luxury ppt vale, crisis, bling bling, tradition, According to Yeoman and McMahon (2005), luxury is incredibly fluid, and changes dramatically across time and culture'[10]. This opinion becomes very much clear by thinking if the meaning of todays definition of luxury is the same definition of luxury of just eighteen months ago. Today it is even harder to give an accurate definition of luxury. After the financial crisis, culminated with the bankruptcy of some key players in the real estate and banking industry which caused a chain reaction hitting all the other sectors, the perception of luxury has surely changed, at least to a certain extent. This critical point merits further considerations and, therefore, it will be investigated in the following research at the core of this study. In the next lines some leaders opinions in luxury will be presented. Some of these thoughts were collected in a confidential in-depth research carried out at the beginning of 2009, supplied by Montblancs management. They will introduce the students point of view about the sharp evolution of luxury meaning in the last months. Herein, some comments about the change of luxury construct in the last year. S. Toledano, Dior: Compulsive shopping, its over. M. Nieto, Baume Mercier: Price sensitivity is coming back fiercely. C. Binkley, The Wall Street Journal: Its bling over J. Rupert, Richemont: During a recession, Im sure consumers will choose solid values. B. Pavlowski, Chanel: Dont neglect any aspect of the product quality. R. Palti, Le Nouvel Economiste: Many markets are saturated and there is an increasing number of offers proposing the same service. Finding what will best meet the clients expectations is no easy task. And yet, in these days of economic, financial ( lack of confidence) crisis, there is not a single company that can afford not to satisfy its clients, even just to sell. B. Arnault, LVMH[11]: post-recovery customers will not only place a particular emphasis on values like quality and craftsmanship, but also on exclusivity and commitment to social and environmental responsibility. D. Dion, Sorbonne University: Luxury has to return to its exclusive and extraordinary roots. B. Fornas, Cartier: We are witnessing a return to true luxury and high end luxury products, which Cartier symbolises. JC Biver, Hublot: When there is a crisis, it is necessary to get as close as possible to ones clients to better understand them, to reassure them and to make in due time the right decisions. S. Toledano, Dior: There should be both empathy and connivance between the brand and the client. A. Ahrendts, Burberry: Even though the overall market may become difficult, I think that retailers and customers are always open to a new innovative idea or a new exciting concept. Jeffry M. Aronsson, Donna Karan: luxury is attention to detail and quality backed by superior service.'[12] B. Pavlowski, Chanel: One should keep investing in creation. D. Peters, Jewelers of America: Selling in challenging times is not about product and its not about price. Rather, its about people and relationships, and the quality of the customer experience. J. Taylor, Harrison: The definition of living well is changing. There is a desire to not stand out. If youre laying people off, you dont want to buy a Ferrari. S. Geary, Mulberry: In the coming months, the mood will be against that â‚ ¬Ã‹Å"blind consumption. A. Arnault, LVMH: The collection focused on elegance and discretion and used materials that were noble but not too visibly noble. Giorgio Armani: Those who deliver what they promise to their customers, and bear their customers in mind, will survive the current economic climate. After this round-up, some further considerations have to be made. At our time, some relevant trends can be observed in luxury. These trends have an important impact on todays interpretation/ perception of luxury. Increasing of price sensitivity is one of them. In time of crisis, luxury sector is one of the most negatively affected due to the nature itself of luxury products. According to Maslows pyramid, luxury products do not belong to the first steps of the human beings needs (phy
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Comment Cuisiner Son Mari a L’africaine: How-to Manual or Cautionary Tale
De tous les arts, l'art culinaire est celui qui nourrit le mieux son homme. – Pierre Dac Calixthe Beyala was born in Cameroon in 1961. She was very disturbed by the extreme poverty of her surroundings. She went to school in Douala, and she excelled in Mathematics. Calixthe Beyala traveled widely in Africa and Europe before settling in Paris, where she now lives with her daughter. Beyala has published prolifically, and her most recent novel, which came out earlier this year, is called La Plantation.Beyala’s novel Comment cuisiner son mari a l'africaine appeared in the year 2000, published by Albin Michel. It is similar in structure to Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, where the narrative is interrupted by the recipes which figure in the plot line. In her book, Beyala includes twenty-four of the recipes which her heroine Aissatou prepares to attract her neighbor and compatriot, Souleymane Bolobolo. In this way the book serves as a how-to manual, as its title sugg ests, on how to seduce, marry and keep a husband by cooking for him.The book begins with a prologue in the form of a legend where a woman arrives at the remote home of the recluse, Biloa. She announces that she has dreamed of him since she was a little girl, and that she has always known that they would marry. Biloa protests that he isn't the one she is seeking, repeating â€Å"Ce n'est pas moi†, but the woman tempts him with food so Biloa admits his identity, â€Å"C'est peut-etre moi,†and takes the woman and the basket of food into his house. This, according to the legend, is how Biloa came to be a member of the society of men.This prologue does, indeed, prefigure the struggles of Aissatou, our novel's heroine, who is a une dame-pipi28 caught between her identity as a Parisian and as an African. Fed up with romantic disappointments, she has chosen her neighbor Bolobolo to be her husband, though she hasn't really even met him. Aissatou, who habitually eats only three grated carrots for her dinner, and always takes her tea without sugar in order to maintain her slim figure goes to a marabout for advice on how to seduce Bolobolo, and is provoked by the other women that are also waiting there for advice.According to them, Aissatou's problem is that she is too skinny, and they lament the fact that â€Å"ces filles d'aujourd'hui ne savent meme pas cuisiner†¦.. et ca se veut des femmes. â€Å"29 Aissatou takes this all to heart and armed with the recipes she learned from her mother and grandmother, she attacks her neighbor on the culinary front. She begins by bringing â€Å"beignets aux haricots rouges†to Bolobolo's elderly mother who is suffering from a mental illness, and then continues tempting her neighbor with other exotic and spicy dishes.Aissatou is not unopposed, however, and deals with her rival, Bijou, by again eclipsing her performance in the kitchen. Eventually, Aissatou does seduce Bolobolo, and after his mother's death, t hey do marry. But the story doesn't end here. In an epilogue, the reader gets a glimpse of Aissatou and Bolobolo's marriage twenty years later. Aissatou admits that she cooks to save her marriage, which is constantly imperiled by her husband's infidelity.But, as her mother had told her, â€Å"There comes a time when one must prefer one's marriage to one's husband,†and so Aissatou sacrifices her pride and tends her relationship in the kitchen even though she realizes that her husband is an adulterous coward. The epilogue leaves a bitter taste at the end of such a delicious novel, but it keeps it honest, and doesn't allow it to seem like the simple re-telling of the legend of Biloa. Whereas the themes of food and cooking often serve as expressions of nostalgia in other novels, in Beyala's book, food is a language spoken by the different characters.Aissatou hears her mother's voice prescribing certain dishes to mend a broken heart and other dishes to soothe herself and her fami ly, for as she says, â€Å"Ventre plein n'a point de conscience. â€Å"30Her daughter, however, doesn't initially have the same reaction when feeling low and instead she makes herself a bowl of ‘veritable soupe chinoise en sachet. ‘ This means that prior to her decision to seduce Bolobolo by cooking for him, the only cooking that Aissatou undertakes is nothing more than adding water to a dried powder and heating it up.The fact that the dried powder is identified as ‘real’ and ‘Chinese’ point to the fact that it is really neither. Aissatou is not concerned with her food’s quality or ethnicity, and cares only about its convenience and calorie count. In the course of the novel, Aissatou will give up her proclivity for these ‘inauthentic’ foods and begin to enjoy the foods of West Africa prescribed by her mother and other African characters. In Beyala’s book, African food is imbued with nearly magical qualities. Yes, it does put meat on the bones of those who enjoy it, but it also excites the senses, and inflames the passions of those who eat it.Moreover, the true connoisseurs and sages of African food are all women. Even when Aissatou goes to consult a marabout about her love life, it is the women who actually reveal her ‘diagnosis. ’ Maimouna, who is known as ‘la cheftaine-reine des cuisines†amongst the women at the marabout’s apartment says that Aissatou’s problem is that she is too thin, and that a certain spicy shrimp dish will always attract a man. Once Aissatou decides to begin cooking African food in order to achieve her goal of seducing Bolobolo, she is also able to influence other situations through her cooking.She decides to provoke a macho response in her passive male best friend and prepares a jus de gingembre, a drink formulated to send him into a frenzy of desire, just to see what will happen. When confronted by her angry rival, mademoiselle Bi jou, she cooks a bouillie de mil for her to show that she is civilized and in control of the situation. Later, angered by Bijou's assessment of her relationship with Bolobolo, she also takes revenge on him by putting a laxative in a favorite dish of his. And of course, Aissatou's prime objective, clinched by her pepe-soupe aux poissons, is to arouse an appetite for passion within Bolobolo.Aissatou is speaking through her cooking, revealing her desires and fears, using food to express those things which she cannot explicitly state. In addition to its function as a way to provoke a physical response in the eater, food acts as an important cultural identifier in this novel. Through it we see the transformation of Aissatou from Parisian, back to African and from white, back to black. In other words, she effectuates a reverse migration, and food and cooking are the vehicle that she uses to bring herself back to her roots.Though this migration is easy to track, as she embraces her motherà ¢â‚¬â„¢s attitudes toward food, cooking and even marriage, it is more difficult to find Aissatou’s point of departure. In the beginning, Aissatou’s very racial and ethnic identity is called into question by Beyala’s own publisher’s blurb on the back of the novel itself. It describes her as  « une Parisienne pure black en proie au tourments de l’amour.  »31 But Aissatou claims that her self-imposed exile in France has made her forget the fact that she is black and that she doesn’t know when she became white.She admits that she has become white by imitating the thin, white Parisian women who are, as she is, completely caught up in the constant pursuit of beauty that is calculated to please men. She realizes that she has adopted a foreign mentality when it comes to her own body image and describes herself thus: â€Å"Moi, je suis une negresse blanche et la nourriture est un poison mortel pour la seduction. Je fais chanter mon corps en eplu chant mes fesses, en rapant mes seins, convaincue qu'en martyrisant mon estomac, les divinites de la sensualite s'echapperont de mes pores. 32It is interesting to note the use of the kitchen techniques, which indicate how previously her only cooking projects served to keep her thin. She combines these techniques where she literally scrapes her body until it is thin with words like martyr and divinity, playing into the idea that the denial of food in order to remain thin is a somehow sacred task. This is a long-standing dialectic, where women align divinity and asceticism when that same asceticism really represents a societal imperative to conform to ideals of beauty.This statement is a declaration of success; she has martyred her body in order to be desirable, and therefore white. Though Aissatou admits that she diets constantly and obsessively, like other Parisian women, she also lies about what she eats, just for the sake of being cruel. When asked about her diet by an apparently jealous overweight woman, Aissatou joyfully tells her that she has, since her birth, eaten, â€Å"le coq au vin, arrose d’un bon beaujolais nouveau; les epaules d’agneau aux champignon noirs, le ris de veau a la creme fraiche et le couscous mouton a la tunisienne. 33Of course, it is completely untrue that she ever indulges in such rich food, and certainly doubtful that she ate these traditional French dishes as a child in Cameroon. It is worth noting the inclusion of Tunisian couscous with the list of very traditional French food. Couscous has entered the repertory of French foods and is a common dish, despite its colonial origins. Though one may argue about the ‘authenticity’ of a Parisian â€Å"couscous a la Tunisienne†and how it plays on French ideas of exoticism, it is undeniably a part of French cuisine.This is in contrast to sub-Saharan African cuisine, which is much more difficult to find in the capital. Though you can eat couscous in every arrondissement, you would be hard pressed to find many restaurants that serve food from West Africa or the provisions necessary to make them at home. With this book, Beyala presents a fictionalized cookbook, and if the intrepid home cook should retrace the steps of the heroine, it could even serve as a guide for shopping for the ingredients in the recipes.As mentioned previously, this book’s structure is similar to other popular novels where recipes for the dishes prepared by characters are included, like Frances Mayes’, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Laura Esquivel’s, Like Water for Chocolate. But in these novels, the recipes are most often a part of the narration itself and sometimes are even recounted by one character to another, mimicking the traditional way that cooking recipes are transmitted, orally, from one cook to another, most often mother to daughter.In Beyala’s book, which features African characters who themselves benefited from the oral traditi on of passing down culinary knowledge, Beyala’s chooses to completely disconnect the recipes from the text, placing them on a separate page at the end of the chapter, and printing them like a traditional recipe that could be found in any cookbook or magazine article. Also, Beyala’s book differs from Mayes’ and Esquivel’s because their novels are both set in a time or place that is foreign to the reader.Esquivel’s novel is set during the Mexican revolution, and Mayes’ is set in Italy, and their settings automatically place them in a foreign and/or exotic locale. Despite this fact, the reader can easily recreate the recipes that their characters make, thereby exoticising themselves by their appropriation of the foreign meal. In contrast, Beyala’s book is both more accessible in its setting, and less accessible to the home cook. Comment cuisiner son mari a l’africaine is set in the present-day French capital and is completely reco gnizable in terms of its location and lifestyle.But re-creating the recipes that Aissatou makes is nearly impossible, because many of the ingredients listed in these recipes are not translated or even described. Though it would seem that this cookbook is intended for other immigrant women to use in re-creating dishes from West Africa, the lack of information about ingredients or possible substitutions runs counter to other cookbooks with similar propositions. Therefore, the status of the book as a manual is questionable, since it is not clear that one can even follow the recipes.Beyala’s book may just be using the recipes as other novels use illustrations. They are glimpses of a foreign culture provided by the author in order to pique the interest of the reader, just as an illustration does. Beyala’s location of the text in Paris is key in the novel, because it allows her to set up a cultural dialectic between France and Cameroon. Her heroine must navigate the multicul tural space of the post-colonial capital to assess the compromises and concessions that white and black women make.Aissatou is caught between her Parisian reality where sexual value is based on how thin a woman is, and her memories of her mother's advice which promoted the importance of domesticity and especially culinary satisfaction in the life of a couple. â€Å"Un homme qui vous fait ressentir de telles emotions†¦.. merite le paradis,†34 she would say as she seasoned a dish to please her man. Aissatou imagines the questions that her mother would have asked her if her daughter had come to her after a failed love affair.Her mother would have asked if first, she had satisfied him sexually, second, if she had kept the house well, and third if she had prepared nice dishes for him. As Aissatou begins cooking savory dishes for herself her thin figure fills in with more womanly curves, eliciting pitying looks from some who think that she has let herself go, and approval from others. Race, beauty, food and sex are all locked into an uneasy correlation that she cannot accept. She gives up on the idea of maintaining a French, i. e. thin, ideal of beauty and trades it for the African ideal of sensual pleasure of food as a means to attract men.Interestingly, she does not trade her French beauty regimen for an African one. She even cites the methods that she is unwilling to follow and decides that braiding her hair, massaging herself with shea butter and pretending to be fragile is not for her: â€Å"Rien qu’a y penser, je m’epuise comme si c’etait deja a l’ouvrage. †35 This return to her roots is unquestionably problematical for Aissatou. She is torn between the two worlds constantly. For example, when she sees Bolobolo leaving the apartment building, she is struck by her sudden ‘African’ reaction: â€Å"Si j'etais sa femme, je serais restee a la maison a l'attendre. But just as quickly she asks herself, â₠¬Å"Mais pourquoi dans le partage des roles les femmes doivent-elles garder le foyer, cuisiner, allumer les lampes†¦. jusqu'a ce que mort s'ensuive? †36This is the same reaction that she has when she asks herself if she is capable of using African methods of seduction. Aissatou’s onerous task is to reconcile her African mother’s advice on how to seduce and hold on to a man with her French post-feminist questions about that role. She knows that her mother is right, and that she will be able to seduce this African man by appealing to his sensual desires and African identity.So, she picks at Bolobolo's sensibilities as an African man and critiques him for doing the marketing himself, saying: â€Å"Vous vous etes finalement bien adapte a l'Occident qui voudrait que l'homme soit une femme et l'inverse. †37In this way, she calls attention to the cultural difference in the French and African views on the traditional division of labor and highlights the fact t hat she and Bolobolo share a common culture, though they may be forced to adapt to French practices.Aissatou also seeks to call attention to their shared culture when she uses Bolobolo's mother's condition as an excuse to get involved, which she does with ulterior motives: â€Å"J'ai l'impression que mon discours est en decalage, espace et temps. Je sais que j'ai eu une reaction africaine ou tout le monde se mele des casseroles etrangeres. â€Å"38 This statement is telling because it shows that Aissatou knows that she is acting in bad faith.She knows that she has rejected certain aspects of African seduction and that she is not being honest about her intentions, but she nevertheless goes forward with her culinary seduction of Bolobolo and his mother. When Aissatou brings the beignets to Bolobolo's mother he mentions that she mustn't have anything better to do if she is cooking for others, but Aissatou reminds him: â€Å"Oui, parce que dans ce pays il faut etre vieux ou au chomag e pour se rendre compte qu'il est important que l'on s'occupe des autres,†again setting herself apart from the French and reminding him that they are compatriots.She finally gains access to his house with this plate of food. Once inside, she professes that she loves to cook and he answers that he loves to do dishes, seeming indicating that they are ideally suited for each other, but also indicating that he may be an African man, but he has adapted to a non-African setting. And this is the prime reason that Aissatou cooks, and especially why she cooks African food, to spark Bolobolo's passion for her. Aissatou cooks constantly, and she cooks the most exotic dishes and uses ingredients that she must search for in all the African boutiques of the capital.Her apartment building is infused with the heady aromas of African cuisine, which causes different reactions among her French neighbors. The concierge battles the smells of cooking with the Airwick spray, but the old lady who li ves on the first floor creeps up the steps to hover on the landing while Aissatou is cooking. Aissatou’s cooking, because it is foreign and strange smelling, makes her black in the eyes of the racist concierge and Bolobolo’s metisse girlfriend, Bijou.Aissatou decides to invite Bolobolo and his mother to dinner at her apartment, where she intends to win him over with her prowess in the kitchen, but when she goes downstairs to invite him, another woman is in the apartment with him. Unfazed, she announces that she would be happy to bring dinner down to them to enjoy together. The dinner is a success with Bolobolo but his girlfriend, a lovely metissse named Bijou, doesn't enjoy herself at all: â€Å"Je n'ai jamais aime la cuisine africaine†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Parait qu'ils mangent des singes, ces Negres! †To which Aissatou responds: â€Å"Du serpent boa egalement†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.C'est excellent, n'est-ce pas†39Again, the food has served to bring together the African s and place them in opposition to a separate group because they share a taste for a dish that others find objectionable. Aissatou even goes further in invoking their taste for boa constrictor, because she knows that Bijou will be disgusted by this prospect. Since Bijou is mulatto and not just French, Aissatou and Bolobolo’s shared food preference places emphasis on the fact that they are from the same country in Africa and therefore share a distinct culture, and should not be lumped in with other ‘people of color. But Aissatou's main goal for her fabulous dinner is achieved after Bijou's departure when Bolobolo starts kissing and caressing Aissatou while she is cleaning up the kitchen. This woman, who previously denied herself any sensual pleasure at all from food, is altered by her dinner with Bolobolo. With her seduction of Bolobolo she acquires a new language, where food metaphors dominate the description of sex and the body. Nicki Hitchcott sees the narrator’ s almost over the top references to food to be a demonstration of cliches on which Western advertising depends. 0But at the same time, this dinner is evocative of the traditional polygamous African family dynamic, where the wife who cooks for the husband is the one who sleeps with him that night. Although Aissatou must still deal with her more powerful rival, Bolobolo's mother, she is eventually successful in seducing and keeping him with her culinary talents. By the end of the novel, Aissatou's transformation is complete. She does experience uneasiness when it comes to her own motives and doubts regarding her role in what Hitchcott calls ‘postnational’ France, but Aissatou settles on using cooking in order to maintain her relationships.She has gone from being a self-described white woman who viewed food as a ‘fatal poison' in the matter of seduction, to using food as a tool to accomplish her goal of seducing Bolobolo. She now sees food as a positive, unifying for ce: â€Å"La nourriture est synonyme de la vie. Aujourd'hui elle constitue une unite plus homogene que la justice. Elle est peut-etre l'unique source de paix et de reconciliation entre les hommes.  »41And in this novel, cooking can also reflect passion, love, comfort, anger and civility.Food and Aissatou's deft manipulation of people through her cooking give her power that she doesn't have otherwise in French society. As Bolobolo’s mother says in the novel, cooking is indeed becoming a rare skill especially in large capital cities like Paris because women are increasingly working outside the home, and don’t have the time or even talent to cook, since they never really learned the skills from their mothers. Even though France may be a center for haute cuisine technique, it suffers the same problems of all modern countries where there has been a redistribution of domestic tasks from inside to outside the home.Women don’t cook as much as they used to, and more a nd more people eat outside the home. Therefore, we must ask ourselves for whom the didactic element of this book is intended. As stated above, it is not descriptive enough to satisfy a food adventurer in search of the exotic and by virtue of the fact that it is written and published in France, it is clearly not intended to be used by African women. Perhaps the reader who would find Beyala’s recipes to be the most accessible are women like herself, immigrant women who might need to be tempted back to the kitchen.When this is considered along with Beyala’s problematical portrayal of marriage, the book appears as an invitation to take up cooking, not as a way to experience the exotic, but as a way to reject the Western ideal of beauty and to appropriate some power within the community. Aissatou returned to this aspect of her African heritage, because she had a specific goal in mind and felt that this would allow her to achieve it. She questions herself, her methods and he r motives all along the way, and ultimately accepts the limitations of â€Å"un bon pepe-soupe†and her husband’s monogamy.Just as she advises her neighbor whose husband has begun to stray from the conjugal bed, she doesn’t reproach Bolobolo and accepts his infidelity, knowing that eventually, he will return to her. She rejected the literal and figurative hunger that she experienced as a ‘negresse blanche†and chose the culinary tools that allow her to make her husband happy, even though she knows that he will sometimes hurt her. Beyala’s heroine fully understands the limitations that she faces in a Paris, and negotiates an identity through her cooking that she can live with.
Friday, January 10, 2020
Life After Death
Life after Death. Daniel Yashinsky 16/09/2011 Death is a word that someone never likes to hear but questions that always come to mind are what happens after we die. Many people believe in different situations but ultimately I assume that the way we live out our life will determine our results in the afterlife. Almost like being punished in a sense it’s the way of the society to believe in morals such as right and wrong. Who or what judges the fact of where we go. Are these theories accurate or is it all just a fabrication. All in all it’s pretty hard not to think of the one thing you can’t run from. Since the moment I was born my parents have been telling me what is right and what is wrong. So if I was to do something wrong I would get punished so these morals have always been engraved in my brain. Who decided what is right and what is wrong, why do we have these morals and why do we get punished for committing so called sins? I don’t think there is a true answer for that, but people think that if you are a good human which can mean so many different things but in general if you live out your life doing good deeds that you will go to a heaven. This theory also works in the opposite way as well, when people commit sins that are against the â€Å"norm†of the society they live in then they will go to hell. This is one of the reasons why religion has been followed for so long to keep society in control according to what we presume is in control. If one believes in this then it will be easy for someone to just live their life and not fear what is beyond the threshold of death. But one question still remains, who decides our faith after death. Today I was asked â€Å"do you believe in god? I didn’t know how to respond because all I could think about was the reasoning for his asking. Did he want me to believe in god? Was he just curious to know what my thoughts were on the matter? All I know is it’s a personal question but it felt like I was being judged. I like to have my own views on things I don’t usually conform to society, almost like an existentialist. So the answer to the question is somewhat, I don’t particularly believe in god itself, but I think there is some sort of higher power. The real question is if this higher power ends up judging us just like this man did to me today. So this higher power for some odd reason gets to judge me and the rest of the world to decide if we get to go to a happy place or a sad place in simple words that is what religion means. People devote their whole lives thinking if they follow this rule their afterlife will turn out well for the rest of eternity. Now I will see beyond this and look at people who do not believe in god what so ever, so these sorts of people are condemned to live in the underworld. Now who’s to say that the way I live my life will determine my afterlife. Why should I believe something that someone has just made up without any proof? Anything can happen after you die; people shouldn’t spend their whole life deciphering the code of death. The reason people feel such a need to believe in something is because they have a fear, the fear of the unknown. When you don’t know what is going to come after you die, how can’t face those fears. I honestly believe that any of these theories can be true, but little did I know how much death plays a star role in so many people’s lives. Truthfully everyone sees death differently and depending on who you are Now life is an important thing to all of us, why waste it thinking about what’s going to happen after death. If I was to die I would like to one to judge me on the things I have done in my lifetime. This will give a meaning to my life and many other lives as well. Seeing how so many people believe in this way of life that it would be terrible not to see it fulfilled, also a something of a higher power judges us and leads us through the rest of eternity. Finally we can go against it all and say that all that happens is we rot in the ground. So for all we know life as we know it can be death without any real proof we just have theories but my beliefs will stay strong .
Thursday, January 2, 2020
Eggplant The Universally Flattering Color for Every Woman
Eggplant is a Universally Flattering Color for Every Woman This season, we dare you to be fearless by adding some bold pops of color to your wardrobe. This is the perfect moment to brighten up and broaden your color pairing options since the latest trends embrace deep, daring hues. Of all the color trends this season, we easily fell in love with the rich, royal tones of purple, from amethyst to plum to lavender. The new Fresh Produce Eggplant Collection celebrates the earthy tones of this comforting vegetable, which stars in such hearty dishes as ratatouille, moussaka and parmigiana. Fresh Produce now carries more than 100 women’s clothing items in various purple-inspired hues, from a pinstripe vintage cardigan and comfortably stylish flutter dress in eggplant to a Boca pencil skirt in lilac and a soothing soy candle made from lavender and thyme. Enhance Every Skin Tone with Eggplant The combination of warm red and cool blue undertones in eggplant are flattering to nearly every complexion. This shade of purple is both boisterous and soothing, giving fair skin a healthy glow and enriching dark skin with an aura of elegance. â€Å"Eggplant is the perfect purple because it is extremely versatile, almost like a black, dark brown or navy,†notes Leatrice Eiseman, director of the Pantone Color Institute, in an article with Real Simple. Because of this warm-cool combo, more women are also able to pull off jewel tone purples. Lighter pastels and shocking neons run the risk of
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