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Introduction: To be or not to be luxury
Luxury is in fashion, and the fashion is for luxury. To be ‘in’, just as you must be young, you must be ‘luxury’. Moreover, eternal youth is the luxury of those who are able to frequent the most sublime spas, the famous cosmetic surgeons, and purchase the fruit of the latest scientific research from prestige cosmetics brands, with the rarest ingredients. Today, luxury is everywhere. Managers and marketing people regularly invent new terms to qualify luxury: true luxury, masstige, premium, ultrapremium, opuluxe, hyperluxe. Instead of clarifying the concept of luxury, this semantic creativity only adds to the confusion: if everything is luxury, then the term ‘luxury’ no longer has any meaning. What, therefore, constitutes a luxury product, a luxury brand or a luxury company? The current confusion masks a profound reality: luxury does exist, it is not just a trade, restricted to some cars or fashion accessories, but a different and global way of understanding a customer and of managing a business. The concept of luxury is as old as humanity; a discriminating understanding of it makes it possible to define the rigorous rules for its effective management. Such is the goal of this book.