Luxury and sustainability: a common future? The match depends on how consumers define luxury. (2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kapferer, Jean-Noël; Michaut, Anne
• Is Part Of: Luxury research journal. Volume 1:Number 1(2015)
• Page Start: 3
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2015
• Subjects: sustainability -- luxury goods -- luxury brands -- luxury industry -- corporate social responsibility -- CSR -- ethics -- fashion -- sustainable development -- customer perceptions -- latent expectations; Luxury goods industry -- Periodicals; Luxury goods industry -- Management -- Periodicals; Luxuries -- Periodicals; Luxuries -- Marketing -- Periodicals; Luxuries -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Brand name products -- Periodicals; 338.470005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2041-3831

Abstract

Sustainability issues have become a challenge for the luxury sector whose continuous success and growth - despite recessions, economic crises and increasing social inequality - appear as a paradox or even a provocation for some critics. Based on a program of multiple surveys involving actual luxury customers, we explain why customers are not concerned about sustainability considerations when they purchase a luxury product. But this apparent uninvolvement hides a more complex reality with high latent expectations towards luxury brands. Fundamentally, the perceived contradiction between luxury and sustainability depends on how luxury is defined by consumers: it is lower for consumers defining luxury in terms of exceptional quality. This is crucial for the defence of the legitimacy of the luxury sector as a whole, and of its most iconic brands for the future.