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Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

It's a luxury brand. I have been there twice for specialty tools, and while it's not what Hermès has become, they do have an analogous network of craft manufacturers and the core of their business is/was from people who actually do something.

I think the secret to a luxury brand is to take something people love and then imagine and make the perfect version of a tool for it without being constrained by costs. It's the pursuit of an ideal. For that example, it was horse tack with a successful accessories business that took off, for LVMH it was travel trunks for grand tours. For Lee Valley, it was woodworking and gardening. I'd venture that behind every upper tier luxury brand, there is an essential activity that people love, and they don't see the money go in pursuit of it.

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I… don’t really follow this take? I agree that Lee Valley occupies a position at the top of the market, but I don’t think it’s about luxury, at all. My father was a cabinet maker, my mother a school teacher. They built their own home in the countryside, grew much of their own food, and could not have been less interested in “luxury” in any familiar sense of the word; but the shop and house is full of stuff from Lee Valley, because it is consistently high quality, and they don’t like buying stuff that gets thrown away.

I think your comment maybe conflates quality with luxury?

"Lee Valley" sounded vaguely familiar, so I plugged it into my email. Turns out I purchased 2 hanging wine glass racks [0] from them in 2020 for $6.20 apiece (to go above my kitchen sink on either side). We're talking generic "wire" 2-up wine glass racks I got to maximize space in my very ordinary rental apartment. I spent 5-10 minutes researching and identified Lee Valley as the best vendor for this very specific need, when I didn't trust the selection at the large Ace Hardware a mile away. Not remotely luxury, in my scenario ("Ikea for hardware"). But reflecting good SEO, clear photos and product specs, and low-friction checkout! Shipping was $7.95 by the way.

[0] https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/hardware/kitchen-hardwa...

I think your comment maybe conflates highly priced 'cheap' tat with luxury? Or 'fashionable' to put it more neutrally perhaps.

Lee Valley Tools has really excellent products and their stores are like museums, but you may have have bought into their brand too much. Their stuff isvery high quality, and very high quality is what a luxury good is. It's like flying first class and then treating it as necessary because it's an absurd affront to your humanity to tolerate how poorly everyone is treated. "First class isn't extravagent, it's basic dignity!" goes the reasoning. Personally, I could never afford cheap things either, but often one must.

Some companies have figured out that they can just sell cheap symbols that impress the sort of people who are impressed by that sort of thing, and they use a similar formula where the essential activity is getting attention or going to nighclubs and parties, but yes, your parents collected slightly more rarefied luxury products.

I would like to distinguish the kind of luxury in which things are built with excellence and style and priced accordingly with a reasonable but not necessarily small margin…

And things like the thousand dollar hoodie which by all appearances is just a hoodie with a particular brand on it.

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