Journal of Design, Business & Society - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2019

Luxury brands have developed new strategies to enhance their value in a more competitive terrain where the exclusivity of luxury is called into question. In a consumer society the definition of luxury has broadened and the scope of luxury has enlarged due to the globalization of luxury brands, increased awareness of these brands and the availability of products to a larger audience on more platforms. While profit margins of some of the top brands are showing impressive growth in order to retain some of the requisite qualities traditionally associated with luxury, – rarity, beauty, timelessness – luxury enterprises must broaden their scope beyond the commercial realm. Many luxury fashion brands have accomplished this through collaborations with artists, engaging renowned architects to create extraordinary flagship stores, showing the work of artists in flagship stores, and in some cases, creating separate spaces within stores for exhibitions. Some brands have entered into collaborations with museums, and a few have created foundations apart from their flagship stores. We will consider the evolution and meaning behind the development of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, an exemplar of this strategy that ties the brand to the world of contemporary art through the realization of a utopian structure within the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.

South Africa is the leading luxury fashion market in Africa. The growing significance of its luxury market driven by a sophisticated and rapidly expanding retail industry has attracted the biggest footprint of international luxury fashion brands in the continent. The influx of international brands has intensified competition in the local luxury industry and introduced new complexities to the management of local luxury fashion brands. A major drawback to the growth potential of local luxury fashion brands is the prevalence of weak brand value, with a consequent negative disposition of consumers to local luxury fashion brands, which adversely impacts their ability to command premium prices. We explore the operational environment of five local luxury fashion brands to understand the factors militating against their efforts at building valuable brands. A number of challenges were identified in the value and supply chain of local brands, which inhibits the ability of local brands to attract premium prices. This article provides insight into the marketing of local luxury brands in emerging markets with a specific reference to South Africa.

This article focuses on the notion of space of luxury. It explores the passage of time; in how showrooms and flagship stores, embedded in the tradition of symbolism and paradigms of symbolic elements, intersect with cutting-edge digital technologies. Also analysed is the resulting customer experience, evident at this meeting between old and new technologies. This study consists of three parts. First, a framework is established by way of a discussion of key concepts underpinning the physical, symbolical and cultural characteristics of the architecture of consumerism and luxury. Second, several case studies are examined to help understand the transition from the use of physical elements (materials, spatial qualities, lighting and surfaces), which generate exclusivity, surprise and sophistication in high-end showrooms, to the employment of new digital technologies – where the luxury component is provided by access to exclusive information and experience. The final part discusses how data and information technologies are radically transforming the current luxury market, where luxury is based on accessibility, visibility and perception. Traditionally luxury spaces were based on a physical demarcation of territories of exclusivity. This contrasts with new luxury spaces that allow for exclusivity to be invisible and ubiquitous; enhancing not only its own imposition of narrow market segmentation, but also acting as bridging elements into every other market sector. Traditionally, the quality and durability of experience around visual meaning, has always been a prerequisite for luxury. As our visual world reorients around the invisible, what we cannot see still has to be sustainable to the point of scarcity. This study holds that visual sustainability, as part of the larger orbit of perception’s five senses, still remains the primary container of meaning, because we see through our experience. Through this experience then, luxury is reinventing itself as a digital showreel; not only of what exists, but of what is possible.

Historically, luxury relies on new technologies but the connection between luxury and technology is not new. I will illustrate how ritual, wealth, science and technology are embodied in luxury. I will point to ancient archaeological and architectural treasures and will discuss how mining, advanced construction and soldering techniques and the transformation of bronze alloy, for example, represented an integration between the highest levels of taste, craftsmanship and scientific technology. Luxury is modernity and in antiquity we see it as a forward moving force at the highest levels of development. When we think of haute couture, there seems to be nothing in common with say, for example, Hipsters or Silicon Valley engineers. But when we think of technology as a common node, we find that concern with artistry, provenance, the importance of the maker, as well as science, are common denominators. Luxury impacts everyday life and answers to contemporary culture at large.

As a common part of everyday speech, the meaning of the word ‘luxury’ has been eroded and devalued over time. Nonetheless, it continues to have impact as an element of luxury branding through its deployment across various media, due to its historical associations with wealth, exclusivity and status. Accordingly, the word ‘luxury’, has been employed/deployed both historically and in contemporary contexts, as part of an economic system, including its use in advertising campaigns, point of sale and in everyday parlance, to denote ideas of intrinsic value (whether existent or not). Meanwhile as this short article will propose, beyond these pragmatic applications, language itself might be thought of as a form of ‘luxury’; something with a worth that surpasses any functional need: something excess or surplus; something unnecessary, but desirable. This notion of luxury can be found in language as a medium, one which we often use indiscriminately, and without regard for its beauty, scarcity and true value. Contemplating the various affordances of language, and the economies of language, where ‘economy’ is not posed as a financial system, but as a way of thinking and acting within any system, allows us to see languages’ intrinsic worth. Via five separate thought experiments/examples, ranging from Oulipo-like games of linguistic restraint, through Fahrenheit 451, and finally to the ways in which technologies are rendering language as a luxury. In the end we will see how we might think of the luxury of language itself, as something which is far from excess or shallow, but possessing intrinsic value; returning us to the true meaning of the term ‘luxury’, which we have (arguably), forgotten.