Definition Of Exclusivity On Quality

This expansion demonstrates how the luxury industry is now run by massive corporations whose focus is only on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and most importantly, PROFITS! With growth and expansion, has come a decrease in quality and rarity. The luxury garments produced are mostly not handmade but are even outsourced to large factories in places such as China and Turkey. Also, to meet quarterly turnover projections, “designers churn(ed) out increasingly trendy collections of clothes, handbags, and shoes.” (Thomas, Pg. 246) With hundreds of new stores around the globe the surplus of designer labeled merchandise is immense hence, the proliferation of outlet malls.

Economic: Being a non-necessity, luxury brand, companies took a hit during the economic downturn. Between 2006 and 2010, poor economic conditions created a .6% decline in industry sales. When customers have less discretionary income to spend, they are less likely to spend money on luxury products.

The author who inspired the topic of this thesis is Dana Thomas. As a fashion writer, Dana Thomas, has analyzed the changes in luxury fashion business. Thomas has been writing about fashion for the past twenty-five years in various journals such as Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Financial Times, and more. Dana Thomas’ two books, Deluxe and Gods and Kings, are the inspiration for this thesis. Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre goes into great detail the secrets of the leading luxury industry brands, namely Prada, Gucci and Burberry, to showcase the “New Luxury” of today and how “luxury lost its luster” by featuring the manufacturing and logistical processes. Thomas exposes that many luxury brands use the same Asian factories that mass-market retailers employ, which raises questions concerning quality and craftsmanship for luxury brands.

It is hard to imagine that after the financial crisis swept across Europe, many great transitional enterprises had to face collapse and bankrupt while the luxury goods industry become more prosperous. Recently, the French luxury goods group LVMH announced their recent business condition. The volume of the first week in October had incredibly increased by 12% the previous week. The Hermes Corporation also said that in order to meet the increasing number of market demand, it would open 15 branch stores in the latter half of the year. These aroused some fierce debates, the public held a skeptical opinion towards the questions: How can the luxury companies maintain their positions? Why didn’t they strike down by financial crisis?

• Down Trend Economy: As a luxury product sales could slump significantly if the economy takes a down turn.

Although currently the global economy seems are fluctuation or even is experiencing a noticeable recession (??The Euro Area,?? 2008; Webster, 2008), request for luxury goods worldwide is enhancing and swiftly increasing, with over 200 billion dollars of annual sales on average every year. (Mcferran et al., 2014). Luxury items represent abundant consumer goods sales all over the world; worldwide selling of accessories, top grade apparel, beauty, jewellery and watches, and many other products (Roberts, 2010). For luxury industry major market segments are not limited into some developed western countries any more, the expansion of markets also reach to emerging markets like some Eastern developing countries or areas such as China (Sherman, 2009). Over and above the traditional developed segments of market new luxury market segments are developing rapidly. For example, performance by graduates of university with decent job as well as pretty high discretionary income, acted as the top twenty five percentage of the U.S. consumers who are called as Generation Xers, spend 1/3 more on personal luxury goods such as ornaments, high-end apparel, beauty as well as home luxury goods rather than those who are called as Baby Boomers (Park and Reisinger, 2009).

The overall sales of luxury goods in the year 2009 is expected to be more than US$150 billion and Asia contributes 10% to it. The concept of luxury is now not confined to only to Europe and US, the Asian subcontinent contributes majorly to it, with India and China as the newly emerging markets. Professor James Twitchell (2002) comments on the democratization of luxury and the changing consumer psychology These new customers for luxury are younger than clients of the old luxe used to be, they are far more numerous, they make their money far sooner, and they are far more flexible in financing and fickle in choice. They do not

The whole society links luxury products to social status. As a result, the psychological aspect, such as “Dream Value” encourages Chinese people to chase luxury products. Xiao Lu states the “Dream Value” that when “a luxury product has the capacity to make consumers dream of possessing it, whatever the nature of their attachment to it. They aspire to become part of what luxury products represent and, as soon as their finances permit, are very happy to fulfill long-held dreams by buying goods and brands that help them satisfy their personal and social aspirations” (Lu, 24). Even though luxury products are extremely expensive compared to the average Chinese economic level, sociological and psychological reasons drive people to the path of

This proposal shall demonstrate previous research of the chosen topic by means of a qualitative literature review, which will identify the key theories and authors surrounding the subjects of public relations and luxury fashion brands. This review is conducted in order to justify the selected subject and research question whilst also aiding in the establishment of a methodology for the research.

Opportunities: the changing preferences by middle class consumers towards luxury products create new opportunities for growth in both US and international markets.

Luxury is a divisive word; it is a satisfaction and not a necessity – lavish and expensive, great ease and comfort, these are all adjectives that define luxury.

One other possibility for luxury brands is to focus their marketing on what makes them special. If you can position yourself as the alternative, the standout from everything else on the market, that will capture people’s attention. In that case, you won’t need

People love luxury. Some people think it stands for fashion, and some people think it stands for a social stratum, but in common, people think it stands for rich and success. However, is it really a symbol of success? Or, it is just the satisfaction of vanity? People can see what famous people use and wear in television or magazine in their daily lives which gives them a model of rich people’s lives. Luxury usually plays a big role. People’s vanities push them to spend a huge amount of their income on purchasing luxuries so that they can look more similar to the famous people who they idolize with. Generation to generation, using luxury to measure whether one is success or not becomes a culture, and rich becomes the synonym of success in the society. The development of luxury industry benefits by this unhealthy culture; at the same time, people’s vanities also be expended by luxury which cause the distorted definition of success.

Analysing the macroenvironment facing the luxury brand industry, there are demographic forces, economic forces, cultural forces and technological forces.

This growth is expected to continue over the next few years as new technology is a main focus. In addition to general growth, consumer behavior has been changing. The general consumer population now considers luxury items as necessities, and the preference is now for high-end products, which are technologically superior.