What is luxury? (Apr 2008)
Luxury can be defined in many ways, usually depending on which aspect we want to put more emphasis. The most common and straight forward definition is “a material object, service, etc., conducive to sumptuous living, usually a delicacy, elegance, or refinement of living rather than a necessity”
. This is fairly generic and therefore gives us a good glance at what we talking about: luxury is something relatively unnecessary that we all want in order to make our lives more enjoyable.
Luxury represents excellence: “normal tasks” executed in a more than satisfactory manner (over performance), belonging (being part of an elite group of people) and satisfaction (the simple brand name conveys pleasure). It is a mix of three different factors: price (high price), availability (hard to find) and quality (high quality materials/manufacturing). These in turn are reflected in intrinsic and perceived value.
The term luxury itself is somewhat concise to what it implies however, it is amazing to notice to what it may be applied: everything. In today's world we can find a luxurious factor in any single element of our lives. Polimoda highlights 9 main sectors: yachts, wines, hotels/restaurants, fashion, automobiles/motorcycles, furniture/home textiles, perfumes/cosmetics, table hollowware/flatware, design objects and jewelry/watches
. These are, from my point of view, the most common “fields” luxury could be applied to however, since it can “touch” anything, I would also add services (concierge companies), real estate (houses, villas, apartments, penthouses, chalets), locations (an island, beach etc), aircrafts and art amongst others.
In conclusion, luxury is becoming more and more a “driver” of the current markets and trends. New luxury is booming and everyone wants to be part of it. Luxury will continue changing and evolving but never die.
. This is fairly generic and therefore gives us a good glance at what we talking about: luxury is something relatively unnecessary that we all want in order to make our lives more enjoyable.
Luxury represents excellence: “normal tasks” executed in a more than satisfactory manner (over performance), belonging (being part of an elite group of people) and satisfaction (the simple brand name conveys pleasure). It is a mix of three different factors: price (high price), availability (hard to find) and quality (high quality materials/manufacturing). These in turn are reflected in intrinsic and perceived value.
The term luxury itself is somewhat concise to what it implies however, it is amazing to notice to what it may be applied: everything. In today's world we can find a luxurious factor in any single element of our lives. Polimoda highlights 9 main sectors: yachts, wines, hotels/restaurants, fashion, automobiles/motorcycles, furniture/home textiles, perfumes/cosmetics, table hollowware/flatware, design objects and jewelry/watches
. These are, from my point of view, the most common “fields” luxury could be applied to however, since it can “touch” anything, I would also add services (concierge companies), real estate (houses, villas, apartments, penthouses, chalets), locations (an island, beach etc), aircrafts and art amongst others.
In conclusion, luxury is becoming more and more a “driver” of the current markets and trends. New luxury is booming and everyone wants to be part of it. Luxury will continue changing and evolving but never die.
Published: Fri, Nov 16 2012 @ 7:02:22
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