Luxury Status Research Articles

Analyzing the Visual Identity of Diptyque Paris

This journal explores the impact of visual identity design on consumer perception and brand recognition, using the luxury brand Diptyque as a case study. The study analyzes how Diptyque’s synchronized design elements—such as logos, typography, color palettes, and illustrations—communicate the brand’s personality and influence customer loyalty. The research aims to provide insights for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) on building effective visual identities by analyzing Diptyque’s successful branding strategies. The qualitative research method involved expert interviews and literature reviews. Experts in branding and design were interviewed to assess the effectiveness of Diptyque’s visual identity in conveying brand values. The study found that Diptyque’s distinctive oval-shaped logo, minimalist black-and-white palette, and hand-drawn illustrations play a significant role in establishing the brand’s luxury status and emotional appeal. Consistency in applying these design elements reinforces brand recognition and loyalty. The findings suggest that a well-defined and cohesive visual identity is crucial for brands to stand out in a competitive market. Diptyque’s example offers valuable lessons for MSMEs on how to use design elements strategically to enhance customer perceptions and build lasting brand presence.

Luxury Embodied and Artistic Exchange: Japanese Lacquer in the Dutch Golden Age

This paper conducts an in-depth exploration of the luxury concept encapsulated within Japanese lacquer during the Dutch Golden Age and its profound implications in cross-cultural exchanges. Through a detailed analysis of the trade history, wherein the Dutch East India Company (VOC) played a pivotal role in introducing Japanese lacquer to the Netherlands, its appearances in paintings that influenced Dutch art, and the emergence of imitations due to its high value, the multi-faceted nature of Japanese lacquer as a luxury item is revealed. In the 17th century, the advanced nautical technology of the Netherlands enabled global trade, and Japanese lacquer, with its exquisite craftsmanship and rarity, became a symbol of wealth and status. The VOC dominated the trade, providing customized lacquer for the aristocracy and using it in diplomatic exchanges. In paintings, its diverse styles led to cultural fusion and artistic innovation. The high price led to Dutch imitations, attesting to its luxury status. Overall, Japanese lacquer was a key luxury symbol, impacting Dutch society, art, and promoting cultural exchange, offering valuable insights into 17th-century Europe-Asia cultural interactions.

EXPRESS: Impact of Inventory Levels and Product Variety on Consumers' Perceptions of Brands

Past research in operations management and marketing on inventory levels and product variety has predominantly focused on their effects on brand performance indicators, such as sales and market share, while overlooking the influence on consumers’ perceptions of brands. Brand perceptions, encompassing reputation, quality, credibility, and emotional associations, go beyond typical revenue metrics and offer foresight into a brand’s future performance. Hence, understanding the effects of inventory and product variety on brand perceptions is crucial, and that constitutes the main contribution of this paper. Through a consumer-facing automobile search platform, we collect data on new cars’ inventories of more than 20,000 dealerships in the United States from August 2020 to March 2021. We measure brand perceptions using 273,991 responses by in-market consumers collected by YouGov. To address endogeneity concerns, we model the effects of inventory and variety on perceived brand strength using three different empirical approaches: 1) high-dimensional fixed effects, 2) instrumental variables, and 3) causal forest. Across all analyses, we find that inventory has a positive effect on perceived brand strength but the main effect of product variety is not significant. Our second contribution is related to the fact that past research on inventory and variety does not, for the most part, investigate systematic heterogeneity due to brand- or consumer-specific factors that impact the effectiveness of inventory or variety; to help fill this gap in the literature, we investigate the role of two important and theoretically motivated moderators: consumer income and luxury status of the brand. We find that consumers’ income levels and brands’ luxury status negatively (positively) moderate the effects of product inventory (variety) on perceived brand strength. Our results have managerial implications for effective assortment planning under scarcity, determining the right range of product offerings for luxury versus non-luxury brands, optimizing the customer’s online browsing experience, and targeting advertisements based on brand and consumer characteristics.

The Lives behind the Luxurious Threads: Beleaguered Sustainability of Kashmir’s Pashmina Artisans

Kashmir pashmina, sometimes referred to as "cashmere,” in the West, is one of the most valuable cultural artifacts Kashmir has offered for centuries, and continues to be sought after. The fine pure pashmina has maintained its luxury status for centuries and is still a symbol of elegance in the international markets. The pashmina shawl is not just popular for its fiber, but also for the elegant embroidery stitched in myriad colors by skilled artisans. Despite this international acclaim, the pashmina artisans dwell in impoverished conditions and face the ever-growing challenges of power looms. This research article is a study of the social and economic barriers that contribute to the dire living conditions of the active Kashmiri pashmina artisans. Along with examining the deteriorating work condition of the artisans, this paper also looks at how these circumstances have a long-lasting impact on the pashmina shawl industry, thus leading to the degradation of an art form altogether. Finally, this paper studies the declining living conditions of the pashmina artisans by analyzing the data collected through a qualitative study incorporating cultural mapping tools like interviews, personal narratives, and literature review. The sample for the study was collected from Kashmir Haat, Srinagar, Kashmir by the researcher through interviews and discussions.

Moth to Cloth: Silk in Africa

Moth to Cloth: Silk in Africa

Does masstige offer the prestige of luxury without the social costs? Status and warmth perceptions from masstige and luxury signals

Can masstige consumers have their cake and eat it too? We explore how signaling through masstige (mass prestige) goods, compared with their luxury counterpart, impacts two important sociometric variables of peer popularity: status and warmth. Given recent research that has demonstrated how luxury status signaling confers to the signaler diminished perceptions of warmth, the current research investigates whether signaling through masstige products can allow consumers to enjoy the benefits of status without incurring the social cost of reduced perceived warmth. Five experimental studies lead to the conclusion that this is not the case: Masstige consumers neither gain increased perceptions of warmth nor status. The studies identify impression management as the causal mechanism (Studies 1a and 1b), introduce a way to attenuate this effect (Study 2), and consider how luxury and masstige consumers differentially identify status signals (Studies 3a and 3b).

Marketing communication in luxury research: a framework-based literature review and research agenda

ABSTRACT Luxury is a dynamic global industry, as well as a domain of study increasingly attracting academic interest due to its unconventional marketing and the unique characteristics of luxury brands. Marketing communication is crucial for luxury brands to signal intangible benefits and build emotional bonds, as their luxury status depends on consumer perceptions and imagery. Yet, luxury marketing communication is an uncharted research area, despite numerous calls for further studies. To aid the advancement of future research, this paper discusses a review of published research on marketing communication of luxury brands structured in line with the TCCM (Theory – Context - Characteristics – Methodology) framework. We analyze 150 empirical research articles published from 2000 to 2021 to map the characteristics of existing literature and provide a roadmap for future research. Our findings indicate that literature is diverse and fragmented in terms of its characteristics. The number of publications is rapidly rising, spurred by recent interest in social media marketing. Articles are far from uniform regarding theory use and constructs examined. Quantitative research dominates and studies reflect a focus on the luxury fashion industry and some geographical concentration. An agenda with several suggestions for future research is put forward.

Transforming natural silk nonwovens into robust bioadhesives for in vivo tissue amendment

Textile manufacturing of silk generates unwindable raw silk fibers, which are treated as silk wastes for downcycling applications, thus unexpectedly demoting the luxury status of silk. As a primary trial seeking to reshape the destiny of silk wastes, the present study is focused on transforming natural silk nonwovens, as a typical model of artificial silk nonwovens, into bioadhesives for tissue repair. Herein, a technique is demonstrated for the preparation of a transparent and stretchable adhesive from a silkworm cocoon sheet (SCS), a typical natural silk nonwoven. This technique differs from the traditional method of completely dissolving silk fibers to obtain silk fibroin. Specifically, the technique entailed pretreatment of the SCS with a CaCl2-ethanol-H2O ternary solution to obtain a modified cocoon sheet (MCS), followed by surface modification with a CaCl2-formic acid (Ca-FA) solution to obtain MCS@Ca with controllable adhesion, which was achieved by adjusting the Ca2+ content in Ca-FA. The highly stretchable MCS@Ca firmly adhered to various substrates for loads as high as 54 kPa, and its performance in repairing an injured liver in vivo was superior to that of a commercial product, Sorbalgon®. Additionally, MCS@Ca effectively sealed a freshly punctured porcine heart and stomach ex vivo, thereby demonstrating its potential as a sealant. To our knowledge, this is the first trial study for on upcycling disqualified silk fibers using a convenient top-down approach to prepare robust bioadhesives for tissue repair, wherein MCS@Ca may serve to bridge the gap between advanced biomaterials and disqualified silk wastes.

Luxury Branding in the Hospitality Industry: The Impact of Employee’s Luxury Appearance and Elitism Attitude

Some of the luxury consumption literature suggests that luxury consumption is a beneficial social signal for the actor which facilitates social interaction. However, a different stream of recent research suggests that luxury consumption bears social costs to the actor. In the employee–customer interaction context, wearing luxury brands can either benefit or backfire for the employee depending on the situation whether luxury status or warmth is necessary. Based on the gaps in the literature, this study examines the impact of employee conspicuous cues by utilizing luxury consumption and elitism attitude on employee–customer rapport and behavioral intentions. The study results show that employees wearing luxury brands increase customers’ perceived impression management toward the employee. Such perception is strengthened when employees show an elitism attitude. In addition, when employees wear luxury brands, customers are more likely to build rapport with employees when they show a democratic attitude, as they perceive the employees are less likely to involve in impression management than showing an elitism attitude. The results build upon the luxury hospitality literature, aesthetic labor, impression management, and rapport literature.

The artification of wine: lessons from the fine wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy

PurposeIn this paper, the authors argue that fine wines can be considered art and as such can be awarded luxury status. The authors discuss the processes of artification, through which such wines are recognized as art (Shapiro and Heinich, 2012), and heritagization, in which the cultural differentiation implicit in the concept of terroir (the various elements of a microclimate that contribute to a wine's specific attributes) connects a wine to its history and provenance. The investigation focuses specifically on fine wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy, which are renowned worldwide for their depth and flavors. What traits are intrinsic to the definition of art, and what social processes culminate in transforming an entity from nonart to art?Design/methodology/approachIt is a conceptual paper that requires blending several viewpoints to present the authors’ own viewpoints.FindingsThis study aims to address the above questions and argues that fine wines, as a source of aesthetic pleasure, are themselves an art form.Research limitations/implicationsThe implications for producers of fine wines and other artisanal products seeking to elevate brand awareness are discussed.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study are of interest to wine scholars as well as wineries. They provide evidence as to how artification occurs.Originality/valueWhile there are papers that address the issue of artification and heritagization individually, the authors bring to bear the importance of both concepts on specific wine regions in France: Burgundy and Bordeaux.

A reflection on the story, current positioning, offerings and the darker side of the luxury gastronomy book, the Michelin Guide

ABSTRACT This article gives some personal reflections on the luxury status of the most famous gastronomic bible — The Michelin Guide. The question being addressed — Is the Guide still considered a luxurious commodity? By using secondary data, the findings show that it is still recognised internationally as the symbol of “la haute cuisine” world and its epicurean experience. Importantly, being awarded stars has significant impacts on the pricing and visibility of restaurants. Besides, given the dualistic nature of the Guide, its offers become more present and accessible. However, many controversies are gravitating around Michelin: decrease in quality; unsuitable selection processes; secrecy and perceived unfairness in the evaluation system; restaurants and chefs refusing to be featured or awarded; the consumption of alcohol and drugs in Michelin-starred high-end kitchens; and chefs’ suicide due to strong pressure.

Are spas and wellness still considered luxurious in today’s world?

ABSTRACT The world of spas has been around for thousands of years. Built as a supplementary service or facility for luxury hotels, it has quickly become a must have for most if not all luxury hotels around the world. Difficulties may be arising, however. Are spas still considered a luxury? Based on current readings, it could be suggested that spas and wellness have become a part of life, depicting a necessity for survival rather than anything else. Questions are therefore asked: Are spas and wellness still considered a luxury in the current era? This descriptive analysis article will take a critical look at spa and wellness, asking questions about its so-called luxury status.

FASHION LUXURIOUSNESS IN ADVERTISING: THE ROLE OF MADE IN ITALY AND HERITAGE ON THE NEW FACE OF LUXURY

Digitalisation, increasing global competition, new relational approaches to communication and advertising by new generations of consumers (for example, the New Millennials) together with social issues such as sustainability and authenticity in branding definition, pose important challenges for companies operating in the luxury fashion industry. In facing them, these companies seem to re-elaborate meanings attributed to luxury rethinking their strategies and their interactive approaches to market. The specialized literature, from its part, shows that luxury is no longer only ostentation but it has evolved in something else; on the one hand luxury as a state of mind and mood, and on the other still a sort of heritage and authenticity. These two extremes tend increasingly to contaminate each other and to co-exist one in the other, albeit with different reciprocal influence. The aim of this paper is determine how this co-existence can occur. It involves two opposing aspects of luxury, that of owning and that of being. There are other facets of luxury that may occur between these extremes. Research has shown, in fact, that luxury is also experience, co-creation, sharing and even self-achievement. Rendering luxury status, but at the same time making it an instrument for individual evolution may determine an integration of its various faces paving the way for a re-conceptualization of fashion luxury in communication.

Individual and Social Factors Impacting Chinese Millennials’ Luxury Consumption

This study examined individual and social determinants that impact Chinese Millennials’ desire for luxury status consumption which eventually influences their purchase intent of luxury fashion goods. Whether income derived differences in regard to the determinants exist or not was further investigated. A self-administered survey was employed to collect data from undergraduate and graduate students at a large university in Hong Kong, China. A series of regression analyses were utilized to test hypotheses. The findings of the study indicate that both individual (i.e., materialism) and social elements (i.e., need for uniqueness and social comparison) positively influence Chinese millennials’ desire for status consumption of luxury fashion goods, while social factors are the key drivers of low income group’s desire for status consumption. These findings provide major implications to academics and practitioners.

Can brands deviate from their brand aesthetic? Brand luxury status as a moderator

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of brand design consistency (BDC) on consumers’ aesthetic judgment and purchase intention; and whether this effect of BDC is moderated by a brand’s luxury status.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-factorial experimental design that manipulated the BDC of handbags (prototypical/high/low) and brand luxury status (luxury/non-luxury) was conducted among 311 female participants to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsResults obtained from t-tests and repeated measures ANCOVA demonstrate that prototypical brand designs, followed by high, and then low BDC products, evoked the most positive consumer responses. Additionally, brand luxury status moderated the effect of BDC on consumer response, such that the effect was more salient for non-luxury than luxury brands.Practical implicationsLuxury brands are able to leverage the halo effect, as perceived brand design inconsistency has a lesser impact on consumers’ purchase intentions than for non-luxury brands. Non-luxury brands have less latitude to deviate from their brand aesthetic, and maintaining BDC in new products is imperative for these brands.Originality/valueDesigners constantly navigate the thresholds of their brand’s aesthetic in design decisions; however, few studies have investigated consumer responses to deviations from brand aesthetics. To the authors’ knowledge, no studies have examined this phenomenon in relation to a brand’s luxury status, a factor that critically impacts consumers’ design expectations.

Space, Efficiency and Service: Luxury and Femininity in the Establishments of J. Lyons & Co (1895–1935)

This article examines the interrelationship of luxury and femininity in the historical case of J. Lyons & Co. Waitresses working for the company represented the widespread feminization of the West End of London during the Edwardian to inter-war period. Examining the results of a democratized luxury in producing new identities for female employees, waitresses known as ‘nippies’ adorned in black and white uniforms, presented an efficient image of modernity and service for all who visited their restaurants or hotels. The emancipation of women in the retail industries aligned with a new image of luxury became essential components in the construction of modernity at the time. With new service industries forming around mass production and consumption, occupational roles and the acceleration of shopping for goods enabled a culture of desire to emerge. Fashionable identities formed around the most modern pursuits of leisure, enabling women to become partakers and representatives of an urban commodity culture. An image of space, efficiency and service was personified by the modern young women whom Lyons employed. Girls who were neatly dressed in an updated version of servant clothing which by the late twenties was further glamourized by the addition of a stylized cap and collar. Whilst the space of London urbanized, the number of women employed increased. Such an impact created various new industries that women sought to enjoy. An appeal of femininity was capitalized upon by proprietors of restaurants and hotels as a contributor to luxury status and female employment. The article investigates gender—in terms of space, efficiency—as a result of a design culture, and service in line with new luxury architecture. In adopting a (feminist) historical materialist approach, with particular examination of the details of dress and design, this article contributes to the broader debates across both women’s studies and design history, offering a specific account of gender and class in the commercial sphere.

Factors affecting sportswear buying behavior: A comparative analysis of luxury sportswear

The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedent factors of consumers' purchase intention and willingness to pay for sportswear brands. Also, the study examines the moderating role of not only the luxury status of sportswear brands (i.e., luxury vs. regular brands) but also the types of luxury brands in particular (i.e., brand extension vs. co-branding). The findings indicate greater impacts of symbolic benefits on purchase intention and the willingness to pay for the luxury brands than for the regular brands; the opposite pattern was observed for the hedonic and utilitarian benefits. As to the comparison within the luxury sportswear brands, the impacts of symbolic benefits on the two dependent variables were greater for the luxury sportswear based on brand extension, as compared to the luxury brand based on co-branding; the opposite pattern of relationships was observed for the hedonic and utilitarian benefits. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, along with future research directions.

Review: From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism, by Alina Payne

Alina Payne From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2012, 360 pp., 62 color and 108 b/w illus. $80 (cloth), ISBN 9780300175332 As Alina Payne explains, From Ornament to Object “is not a book about industrial design. It is about architecture and Kleinarchitektur , about furniture and small portable objects” (21). It is also not a book about the design or use of such objects; rather, it is concerned with how, beginning in the nineteenth century, these objects motivated theoretical questions of style and form. Through textual sources, Payne traces the rhetorical decline of ornament in relation to the rise of everyday objects in art and architectural theories from the German-speaking countries of Europe. The primary interlocutors include well-known heroes of modernism Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, and Hermann Muthesius, as well as Gottfried Semper, Heinrich Wolfflin, Alois Riegl, August Schmarsow, and Aby Warburg, in addition to lesser-known figures such as Ernst Kapp, Richard Streiter, and Cornelius Gurlitt. By revealing their links through shared teachers, publications, and language, Payne argues against a normative historiography, which has long placed Adolf Loos's 1908 Ornament and Crime at the beginning of modernism's narrative, privileging functionalism and structure as the highest values of architecture. She masterfully demonstrates the enmeshed themes and intersecting threads in their texts, aggregating a diversity of objects from armor to altars, tattoos to tureens, column capitals to chairs, and typewriters to trunks. These objects and the texts that deployed them in their formulations about style were both product and productive of Sachkultur , the culture of objects. A term that emerged in the nineteenth century within the context of European industrialization and the concomitant emergence of a consuming bourgeoisie, Sachkultur characterized objects less by their luxury status and more by their scale and mobility. Thus, in an effort to outline a theory of style, a dialectic was conceived insofar as objects were placed in relation …

Consumer Types versus Stereotypes: Exploring Social Tensions in the Luxury Market of South Africa

This paper investigates the behavior and perceptions of luxury consumers in a situation where groups are competing to own status symbols. It uses the South African luxury market as the context to demonstrate how established elites attempt to prevent status deprivation by inhibiting the misappropriation of their status symbol. In South Africa, the legacies and redresses of apartheid have led to a racial divide between the established elite (the whites) and the emerging elite (the previously disadvantaged blacks). Affirmative action policies have lead to socioeconomic shifts, resulting in contestations for status. Using a mix method of survey and cluster analysis, media analysis, interviews and observations, results are triangulated to capture the shifting luxury consumer landscape in South Africa. Four distinct clusters of consumers are distinguished, and their experiences with, and motivations for, luxury consumption explored. Findings indicate that the “competition” to “own” the luxury status symbol has given rise to stereotypes that debase the black luxury consumer. Consequently, the stereotype-threat influences the behavior of black consumers. These dynamics raise market segmentation and promotional mix issues.

The “luxury of woe”: The Deserted Village and the Politics of Publication

When it was first published in quarto in 1770, Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village was received by reviewers as a work of polite sentimentalism. Yet by the Romantic period, the poem had become associated with the radical cause. The critical tradition explains this change in reception in terms of Britain's shifting ideological climate, but it was also conditioned by alterations in the poem's format. In luxurious quarto, The Deserted Village emphasized its speaker's “luxury of woe,” leading early readers to praise its poetry while rejecting its politics. The quarto's luxury status emblematized the contradiction at the heart of the poem and sentimental poetry in general: even while The Deserted Village voiced its sympathy for the downtrodden, this sympathy was figured as a luxury available only to wealthier readers. Soon, however, radical printers succeeded in appropriating The Deserted Village by excerpting it in cheap, small-format editions, transforming what was in quarto a celebration of the luxury of woe into an attack on the woes caused by luxury. Thomas Spence's Pigs’ Meat edition of the poem exemplified this radical appropriation and thus provides a provocative case study of the politics of publication in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain.