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50 years ago, an Hermès scarf, which was impossible to get in India (other than if you were royalty) can now be bought in an upmarket mall or store. So here’s what the luxury industry is grappling with: Is easy access to hitherto exclusive goods rubbing off some of the sheen?

This month, we look at three iconic luxury companies— Swarovski, Dom Pérignon, and Charvet—that are trying to move with the times without letting go of their traditional appeal. Editor-at-large Hindol Sengupta visited these three companies, and came back saying that all three have been forced to let go of some of their historic secretiveness to deal with the new world order, but none of them has really become any less exclusive.

Swarovski, that legendary maker of crystals, has always been more of a supplier to designers. Now, under the fifth generation of Swarovskis, the company is trying to make a name for itself as a jeweller, and, interestingly, as a tech company. Read this story on page 80

Then there’s Dom Pérignon, the king of champagne. Younger drinkers are now giving up champagne in favour of prosecco. Yes, such things do happen! But LVMH, which owns the famed brand, isn’t prepared to dilute Dom Pérignon’s undoubted snob appeal. It wants to sway the prosecco drinkers, sure, but is going about that by stressing on the “taste of stars” as the original Dom Pérignon, a 17th century monk, supposedly said of his first batch of champagne. For more catch up on page 92

From champagne to the world’s oldest shirt shop—Charvet. Sengupta says that for a brand that doesn’t have its own e-commerce site, a number of Charvet shirts are sold online. There’s clearly a large market for 600 kinds of white shirts and 5,000 types of ties. Charvet claims it introduced the concept of a bespoke shirt, but the company isn’t shying away from off-the-shelf variants. It’s just making it very clear that no matter what the shirt, the standards of shirtmaking remainas exacting, story on page 100

It will be interesting to see where these companies are in, say, a decade from now. While Swarovski is trying to keep up with technology, the other two are not making any overt moves towards going tech. Will there be more changes afoot at these companies? At the risk of promoting a cliché, I have to say, watch this space.

Also we traversed the country to pay tribute to the unheralded stars of the arts in a photo feature. That’s on page 107.