You Can’t Design Luxury

A Future Dialogue with Fabian Messer, FERUS

At THE FUTURE SUMMIT TheNewNow in Zurich on 22 April 2026, Fabian Messer (Founder & Creative Director, FERUS) and I held a Future Dialogue under the title You Can’t Design Luxury. The title was deliberate. A brand can be designed — its vision, its name, its visual identity, the way it presents itself. The feeling a guest carries away from a hotel cannot. Between the two stands the team.

The team is the translator

The vision of a brand is designed. It still has to be decoded by the people who run the property — every day, in every interaction. Only then does the guest feel it. A brand that has never been translated by its team is a promise written on a wall. It may look beautiful. It does not arrive.

What this requires

Teams need three things in place:

• Processes: so the brand promise lives in how people work, not only in what they say.

• A framework: a defined space where teams can interpret, decide, and act without losing alignment.

• Enablement: the skills, language, and authority to do the translation in their own context.

And underneath all three: a culture that permits this work. A culture that treats the team's interpretive judgement as part of the brand, not a deviation from it.

The architecture

This is how Fabian and I have come to frame the division: FERUS builds the brand. NOUWORK builds the culture that carries it. The brand is designed. The culture is what makes the brand felt. Neither works alone.

Watch the conversation Below.

TheNewNow - The Future Dialogue between Fabian Messer (FERUS) und Britta Matthesius (NOUWORK)