National Tide 1980.

Chapter 1292 Old Money

Perhaps it’s because Pierre Cardon started from scratch.

The master developed the habit of efficient work from a young age.

Perhaps it was also because of his concern for his good friend Henri Lacamier that the master had been worried about his plight for a long time.

Now that he had finally obtained the key that might solve the problem from Ning Weimin, the master very much hoped to have a face-to-face meeting with his good friend immediately, in order to determine the next course of action as soon as possible.

So, without waiting for any longer, the master immediately made a phone call and managed to contact Henri Lacamier.

Then he drove to meet him with Ning Weimin.

As for Keiko Matsumoto, the master could only change the original plan with guilt, postpone the welcoming banquet, apologize to her, and let Takada Mei take her back to the hotel to rest.

The country villa where Henri Lacamier lived was located in the western suburbs of Paris, west of the Palace of Versailles.

The specific location is Saint-Léger, Yvelines, Paris Region. It is 50 kilometers away from the city center of Paris. Even if you drive there immediately, it will take about an hour and a half.

The villa is a 500 square meter residence located in the heart of the Rambouillet Forest, on a forest path surrounded by trees.

Although it is not too big, this villa is actually a manor.

Not only are there beautiful houses and gardens, but there are also green forests and ponds, which can satisfy the dreams of many people.

What’s even more amazing is that Ning Weimin didn’t see any ordinary families along the way.

Starting from the 7th arrondissement of Paris, once you leave the city you can only see mansions, villas and estates. It can be said that the hundreds of mansions you pass by are all those of wealthy families, and there are no residences for ordinary people.

Even the most ordinary and dilapidated property has a grand gate and a vast wall.

This made him feel very strange, and he wondered if the French had become so rich in the 1980s?

It can't be that even ordinary people can own such a big house, right?

This is so enviable.

Fortunately, the master was by his side.

As someone who has lived in Paris for most of his life, has already achieved success in the European fashion industry, and has deep ties with European high society,

After learning about Ning Weimin's confusion, Pierre Cardon gave him a reasonable explanation.

It turns out that Paris is a country of "poor in the east and rich in the west".

Whether in the city or the suburbs, the powerful live in the west and the common people live in the east.

Therefore, urban development is extremely uneven.

The root cause of all this is the wind direction!

To put it bluntly, for nearly two hundred years, the wind in almost all major European cities has been blowing from the west and southwest to the east and northeast.

Therefore, in modern times when black smoke was billowing, the wealthy class in Europe would only choose the upwind area - the west - as their place of living in order to stay away from coal gas pollution.

So it is not just limited to Paris. In fact, the urban development pattern of "poor in the east and rich in the west" is determined in this way throughout Europe.

This remains the case today, more than two hundred years later.

In this regard, Ning Weimin really has to admit that "existence is reasonable."

It seems that no matter how incredible a phenomenon is, if you study it carefully, you will eventually find an explanation that conforms to the logic of reality.

That’s not all. In order to kill time and relax, Pierre Cardin even used these mansions and estates along the way to explain to Ning Weimin more about the ways of the European “old money”.

Interestingly, if we observe and analyze based on the master's point of view, we can even clearly see the differences between these rich people, as well as the gap in wealth and social status.

Take residential houses for example. You don’t even need to look at the exterior or interior of the house. Just by looking at the driveway, fence, lawn... you can tell which mansion’s owner has a higher status and more wealth, whether he is a new rich or an old wealthy family with a long history.

The reason is that according to Pierre Catton’s theory, the principle used to measure the status of the rich group is “impracticality”.

The less practical it is, the more it reflects one’s wealth and status.

vice versa.

Specifically, the higher the social class and wealth level of a family, the longer their driveway.

A long, winding driveway is far more impressive than a long, straight one, and its function is simply to show off.

The most classy driveway is the one that winds around on flat ground; this is the standard “old money” look.

If the ground is uneven and there are hills, the detour will increase the practical value and therefore it will be inferior, not enough to reflect the owner's superior social status.

It is often the heads of large banks or long-established companies, or the managers of foundations who like such driveways. After all, it is difficult for them to completely break away from practicality.

People who own long, straight driveways are probably just upstarts with no background. This is determined by the values ​​​​deep in their bones and the cognition they have developed since childhood.

And not only the style of the driveway, but also the pavement material of the driveway is a factor that cannot be ignored.

A light brown gravel driveway is best, while white is less so because the latter goes against the principle of avoiding bold and stark contrasts.

But gravel is certainly better than asphalt, and this has nothing to do with whether the material comes from nature, but mainly because gravel needs to be replaced frequently, which is expensive and troublesome.

Asphalt paved roads are the lowest quality because they are too economical and practical. Rich people would never use this stuff to pave their own roads.

As for the walls, since paying attention to privacy is a symbol of the highest class, it not only shows that this class is actually invisible to ordinary people, why they are called "invisible rich", but also explains how the level of the wall reflects the level of the owner of the house.

Any wall higher than six feet indicated that the owner was "old money," while low walls and see-through fences announced that the owner could not be at the top of the social ladder.

Nowadays, even the garage has become a symbol of the owner's status. Garages with more than four cars can basically be classified as the property of prominent families. In the eyes of ordinary people, they have become as hidden and invisible as these people's invisible mansions.

Finally, of course, there are cars.

Since "old money" likes to follow ancient principles, and the history of cars is too short to be worthy of being included in the ranks of classical styles, the top rich people are more casual in their choice of cars and don't care too much about the brand.

Apart from considering comfort and safety, people don't take cars too seriously at all.

The only principle this group follows is that the higher the social status, the slower the car speed. People at the top of society never need to rush.

In the master's eyes, there are only two types of people who like fast cars.

One type is the guy who wants to give girls a sense of excitement.

The other type is the middle class who are full of class anxiety and think they are wealthy.

These two types of people have watched too many racing movies, so they think that driving fast is romantic, sexy and exciting.

But in reality, to be a superior person, you have to drive slowly, steadily, and quietly along the center of the road.

And you should also know that even among those car brands that ordinary people envy and yearn for, there are differences in quality.

A car like Mercedes-Benz is the worst choice in terms of style.

Although car manufacturers tout themselves as "premium," this kind of "premium" is vulgar, a brand of car that is reserved for Beverly Hills dentists, African cabinet ministers, and Japanese yakuza.

So even among the middle class, only those who are doing the worst will buy a Mercedes-Benz.

As for the off-road vehicles, which are even worse than Mercedes-Benz, no matter how advanced they are, they are of low taste and often convey the following implication - the traffic conditions in the place where the owner lives are terrible and even the most vulgar luxury car may not be able to drive through.

In short, the core spirit of the top rich is luxury and waste, with the purpose of maintaining decency and showing off.

Often spending money that could have been saved is a symbol of social status.

After hearing what the master said, Ning Weimin couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Although the master was "scolding" him implicitly, it seemed that he was revealing the truth that he was a poor guy in many ways.

But in fact, the master himself is a pragmatic person like him. Although the car they are riding in is driven by a driver, the car is very ordinary, just a semi-old Chevrolet.

The master's true intention is not difficult to understand. In fact, it is nothing more than satirizing those high-handed and flashy groups on the basis of describing him objectively.

Just think about it, two poor people who have made their own fortunes can have hundreds of millions of dollars to save the hereditary aristocrats who are high above them. This is so funny. Who is stupid and who is smart?

And most importantly, the master used the simplest induction and examples to reveal to Ning Weimin the value standards and aesthetics of the wealthy group in Europe.

It also made Ning Weimin suddenly enlightened. He suddenly realized the answers to many questions that he had been puzzled about in his previous life and felt that he benefited a lot.

To put it bluntly, for people who like luxury goods, what they pursue is definitely not the practical value of using these items, but a kind of "value that can be shown off."

All the money people are willing to spend on apparently expensive things is actually the price of vanity.

Therefore, the key point of luxury goods business is to give customers the opportunity to show off, expand the popularity of the products, and create a high threshold so that people can have the "feeling of being rich" after buying them.

No matter what practicality or high-end materials are used, it is useless and unnecessary.

Only when luxury goods are easier to see and recognize can they sell better, and this is also the secret to Louis Vuitton's success.

Regardless of whether the earliest LV products were practical, LV's continued price increases in the future are the right path to becoming a luxury brand.

After all, nothing is more recognizable than the handbags and iconic logo patterns that women carry around every day.

If it is well known that a bag can cost as much as a luxury car, you can imagine how attractive such a bag is to vain people?

From this point of view, Ning Weimin should really thank Pierre Cardin. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the old man gave him a very inspiring moment.

The luxury industry, which is currently only called the fashion industry, actually does not sell products but just a feeling.

The so-called scarcity makes things valuable and hunger marketing are nothing more than creating a high-end symbol after widespread advertising so that stupid people can see it but cannot eat it, so that they will work day and night to get it and let others envy them.

For this, Ning Weimin really wants to thank the master, who has helped him gain a deeper understanding of the tricks of this industry.

But even so, Ning Weimin seemed to have underestimated Pierre Cardin's intention, because he soon realized that what the master actually wanted to tell him tactfully was that Henri Lacamier had a personality and preferences that were very different from the master himself.

It's like giving him a shot of vaccination in advance.

To be honest, it was not until Ning Weimin arrived at the place that he discovered that the living environment of this fourth-generation LV owner was too luxurious. He really had carried forward the "old money" style to the extreme.

The first thing that surprised Ning Weimin was that the villa had only a private road paved with yellow stones for entry and exit. The wall was made of stone, tall and large, and covered with vines.

A large, exquisitely designed iron gate. Two special security personnel came out of the wooden house behind the gate and opened the gate, allowing the car that Pierre Cardon and Ning Weimin were riding in to enter.

Then there is the winding driveway, winding along the flat road. There are a few deer and dozens of white pigeons running on the large lawn, and a few swans swimming in the pond.

In both substance and potential, these extraordinary domestic animals cannot be associated with vulgarity or profit.

When they parked the car in front of the villa, a special housekeeper came to open the door for them. After entering the villa, Ning Weimin found that the most obvious feature of this villa was that the corner panels, door panels, and similar places were decorated with unnecessary curves.

Wherever wood is visible, dark colors are used rather than light colors, in an effort to give it an antique feel.

The floor in the house must be hardwood, and it's parquet.

The floor was covered with a handwoven Oriental rug that was almost worn out and had the appearance of having been passed down for generations.

Whether it is the marble corridors, carved railings and handrails, or brass door handles, they all need to be wiped every day.

All of this, just as the master described on the road, reflects the extravagant and flashy upper-class style of the owner of the house.

But what shocked Ning Weimin the most was the living room where the host was waiting. The decoration here was exquisite and unique, and it was like a small museum.

In addition to the portraits of four generations of the Weedon family on the wall, there are animal skins laid out in the corners, and fur decorations and arrows from all over the world are displayed.

In the words of Pierre Catton, who is familiar with this place, this is a unity of aristocratic style and natural style.

In addition, there is a collection of hard stone cups that exude the ancient charm of the Renaissance, which is an important testimony to the Chinese style of celebrities in the old days.

According to Ning Weimin's judgment, there are probably not many fakes, and they are all real things of great value.

By this time, he had a clear feeling that the host he was about to meet should be a person who was proud of his illustrious family background and family heritage, but was isolated from the world and a little out of touch with the world.

Perhaps it is precisely these factors that lead to this person having a broad vision but being a little ignorant of worldly affairs, so he cannot distinguish who is a friend and who is an enemy, and thus falls into the trap of others.