Owning things is overrated
Fantasy Gifts: New Neiman Marcus Christmas Book focuses on experiences andgiving back
- Neiman Marcus Edition Hacker-Craft Speedboat: $250,000. Wearing a Panama hat andpretending you're Ernest Hemingway off the Côte d'Azur: Priceless.
- These dancing fountains will set you back $1 million, but look how attractiveyou'll be when tango-ing in from of them.
- I can't believe it's a yurt: Inside the $75,000 "dream folly
- Experiences trump assets: NM's fantasy gifts include a daytrip for six to StoneBarns Farm.
- The Neiman Marcus Christmas Book has the holiday season's most extravagentitems.
- Also on offer? An Assouline-built custom library for $125,000/
You know there's been a cultural shift when our biggest monument to capitalist excess — the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book of fantasy gifts — is getting toned down and in line with the times.
That's not to say the eight fantasy gifts are less mindblowing or more affordable — they aren't. But the catalog has perhaps taken a page from researchers who say that experiences make us happier than possessions, and is focusing more on one-of-a-kind trips and insider access than amassing luxury goods.
Not that luxury items are banished, of course. There's still a special edition hacker-craft speedboat for $250,000 that will make you look like a Kennedy, a plush $75,000 "dream folly" to hang out in when the echoing marble in your manse is giving you vertigo, and a marquee dual set of "dancing fountains" on offer for $1 million. As Neiman Marcus writes, "You'll delight in the joyful movements made by the elegant duo, as they whirl, twirl, sweep, and bow — sometimes in unison, sometimes as counterpoints, but always with engaging grace."
For Forbes-listers who prefer to stay dry (and aren't into fancy yurts), there's a daytrip for six to New York's Stone Barns Farm with an "edible garden lesson," a cooking demonstration and a four-course lunch at the farm's famed Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant. There's also a Johnny Walker private scotch tasting for 20 that will treat buyers at home with both whiskey and a bagpiper, or for $450,000 one can indulge with a vacation for 10 to tour the international flower shows in Switzerland, Athens, Avignon and London, complete with luxury hotels and private jet travel.
One new facet to the fantasy gifts is how each option comes with a charity tie-in. Buying the fountains includes a $10,000 gift to Water.org, the speedboat includes a $3,000 gift from Neiman Marcus to Double H Ranch (a program for families of children with life-threatening illnesses) and the flower show tour nets $5,000 for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Do charitable donations make these ultra-premium gifts more recession-friendly, or are they thrown in to alleviate the guilt of indulgence? And what fantasy gift strikes your fancy?