Alternative Luxury Consumption Assignment | Online Assignment
it is supposed to be an behavioural study with application for luxury business
- Discuss the evolution of the Elite and the luxury brands they promote.
– Define who the Elite were and who they are now
– Define what luxury brands were and what they are now – examples
– Find examples to support these definitions. Case studies.
- Analyse how Incinspicuous Consumption (IC) is different from Conspicuous
Consumption (CC).
– Define IC
– Define CC
– Find examples of how IC is distinguishing itself from CC (Patagonia, Gabriella Hearst,
Louis Vuitton) From the brands’ perspective
- Analyse how and why luxury brands should adapt to IC.
– Collect data (qualitative: interviews with brands in Brazil that are adapting to IC)
– Conduct a market analysis to show why it is beneficial for brands to adapt to IC.
Throughout time, matters of practicality have evolved into symbols of status. Everything we do has social meaning. Our childhood, family life income bracket, and social circles teach us how to go about our lives and interact with the world. Through behaviors and material goods we disclose our socioeconomic position in society with status emerging from cultural forms and signs, and most fundamentally how we live.
The things we acquire and how we use them, even etiquette that show how we have been brought up demonstrate our status to the world, suggesting a social position and relying on the use of visible goods and the skills of how to employ them in a certain way.
Consumption is a way we define ourselves as individuals in front of other social groups and is part of the social system we live in. Just as work, school or family structure cultivates who we are, so does what we consume and the patterns of conduct we learn.
Thorstein Veblen in his book written in the late 1800s, articulated the social significance of consumption and is known for his conception of the term “conspicuous consumption”, the use of goods through which status is affirmed. In his book, The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen criticizes the leisure class, an affluent and unproductive group who futilely demonstrated their social and economic position through material goods, many of which were nonfunctional. Veblen also disputed economic theories that people spend to maximize their moneys utility and said that imitation inspire consumer habits which are irrational.
His most famous example is the one of the silver spoon:”……”
Even if Veblen is famous for his conspicuous consumption critique, his study about the elite of his time (leisure class)shows that one’s social position was more important that any value or usefulness a person could bring to the society, and it was often demonstrated through the uselessness of objects and activity.
Since Veblen new forms of consumption and attitudes have appeared to reveal social status. Globalization and huge evolutions in technology have change the way we work, behave, live and consume. The appearance of the middle class and the reduction in costs of material goods have turned conspicuous consumption into a mainstream behavior. At the same time, Veblen’s leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, founded on meritocracy, the acquisition of knowledge, culture and creative skills, instead of being characterized by their economic position. With this new group emerge new codes, norms and values. They work, and for most of them meritocracy, culture and creativity are prized over birthright. These changes affected the way we interact in society and how our consumption is related to status.
Veblen also believed that competition for status started at the beginning of human civilization. In the Roman Empire the aspirational plebeians imitated the rich and their habits, and the more the lower classes tried to get closer to the elite way of living, the more the difference between in what the elites and the aspirational plebeians exhibited became larger. Even though the there is a great difference between the versions of the elite goods and the simpler version of the ones from the aspirational houses, their universe is the same, evolved by a desire to show status or imitate high social classes.
After the industrial revolution, the appearance of a middle class, the mechanization and mass production of products, conspicuous consumption has become commonplace, with the less wealth practicing this habit more than the rich. Because so many people could afford luxury goods, these became no longer a sign of distinction. We notice that at one point to show wealth started to be considered vulgar and conspicuous consumption was no longer associated with the very rich. Recently the real upper class has been forced to find other implicit marks and habits to maintain its exclusivity.
Most of the people spending their money on high end luxurious goods nowadays, made their own money and are found in global cities. These cities are sites of the new form of economic production and globalization. Here we find the labor market elites responsible for the most profitable financial sectors: finance, law and medicine. But with the shift in the economy in the last decades and specially after the 2008 crises, the greatest profit generating sector has moved from producing material goods to producing ideas and culture.
These new elites, or “creative class”, as termed by Richard Florida, gained access to mobility to the top echelon not relying on birthright, capital or loyalty to one’s institution but through acquisition of knowledge and are not linked to one another by their financial success. Some can be very affluent and some may not, they are not necessarily at the top of the pyramid. Instead of income level, the creative class is connected by a common set of cultural practices and social rules. What reveals their social position is the process trey use to obtain knowledge and form their values. The creative class is defined by their shared cultural capital.
The way they access the news, their concerns about sustainability, health and wellbeing, political views and parenting are ways members of the creative class bind regardless their economic income. What is important to notice is that there is a well-intentioned ambition behind this behavior. The knowledge and cultural capital they prize, are used to make intelligent decisions around what they consume turning them into well informed consumers.
Elizabeth C. Halkett calls this new informed cultural dominant elite the “aspirational class”. They might reveal their social position sometimes through material goods but more and more are manifesting it through cultural signifiers that suggest a previous education to form them. The aspirational class worship ideas, cultural and social awareness, acquisition of knowledge in structuring new ideas and making big and small decisions, from career choices to grocery shopping. Unlike Veblen’s elite, the aspirational class is less characterized by its economics than by its collective consciousness backed by specific codes and ethics, and the cultural and social processes needed to access them.
The aspirational class is stablishing their opinions and principles, some which involve money, but many of which rely on cultural capital, and is opting for a lifestyle motivated by assertive values and a considerable process of selecting information. Because conventional material goods no longer show a clear sign of status or good social behavior, the aspirational class distance itself from these kinds of goods to expose cultural capital and knowledge. As the middle class and the rich can both buy stuff, the members of the aspirational class use information and their eagerness for knowledge to constitute a system of environmental and social norms that set them apart from others.
The consumption of the aspirational class acts as a signal of its members philosophy and of course there is an economic gradient in this new elite formation. Richard Florida in the first version of his book The Rise of the Creative Class, was very criticized about the too broad spectrum of occupations and income he included in his concept of creative class. But it seems to be true for the aspirational class, which is part of the creative class, where some individuals can be amply spending on tuition fees for their kids, expensive holydays and organic food, while other, e.g. an unemployed screenwriter or artist can use their cultural capital and immaterial means to manifest membership, reading the New York Times or caring a canvas tote with a signal of his cultural knowledge. The people who constitute this cultural and social class are elite by virtue of the material and symbolic behaviors required to be a member, that aspire a better version of humans in all aspects with their economic position taking a second position.
Culture and Knowledge are the driving force of the world’s economy today, and is also the way by which this new elite through self-expression, individuality, meritocracy and diversity is defining itself and building up its status signals, whether material or symbolic. The creative and aspirational class more and more are considering in their consumer practices and attitudes , a form to reflect acquisition of knowledge and culture, turning it into membership to this selected group.
Still conspicuous consumption is a very significant way to show social position, but the members of the aspirational and creative class of the twenty first century are finding new channels to show their status. Democratization of conspicuous consumption has provided access to material goods to middle classes and as a consequence the aspirational class mechanisms of showing status has changed.
These people are looking for new forms to connect to themselves and to do so, are changing consumption patterns spending more that are not necessarily conspicuous and always material. They consume fewer conventional conspicuous items and instead look for subtle status makers that come through form of conspicuous production and inconspicuous consumption. A trend that confirms that is the new consumer profile identified by Aurélie Plessier, Head of Strategic Planning at Brainvalue in an interview for the Journal du Luxe where she talks about the Young Buddhists, une tribu émergente qui rejette à la fois le concept d’accumulation des biens – « je veux avant tout arriver sain et sauf au bureau et partir tranquillement en fin de journée ». Ils ont donc des besoins simples. Plus pragmatiques et responsables dans leur consommation, ils rejettent les marques show-off et préfèrent acheter moins mais mieux.
Inconspicuous consumption defines how the creative class is appropriating certain attitudes and goods that may not cost a lot and are not ostentatious but are becoming markers of status. Examples of that are yoga practice, organic eating, reuse of grocery bags, parenting choices, concerns about sustainability in their choices of brands, college degrees, playing sports, etc., all that suggests procurement of knowledge, self-improvement and being well informed.
In the last decades there has been important macro trends in spending behavior. The rich and the upper middle class ( 1%, 5%, 10% top income brackets of the population) are spending less on conspicuous consumption, while the middle class is spending more, even as a share of their expenditures. And among the rich, conspicuous consumption is being replaced by inconspicuous consumption, that is intended to reveal social economic position through goods that are not automatically visible.
The rich are spending less on goods that expose their wealth in a conspicuous way. In 1996, the top 1% spent four times more on conspicuous consumption then other classes. Today, making six times more than everyone else in terms of income, the top 1% are spending three times more on conspicuous consumption.
In an era where conspicuous consumption is highly accessible, social position started to be define by things we don’t actually see. In the 21st century social class status emerges not only from conspicuous items but from behavior patterns that reflects a more conscious taste. For the creatives, members of the creative and aspirational class, this new consumption behavior pattern is called inconspicuous consumption; subtle, less materialistic forms of transmitting status specially to others in the same circles. If with extremely expensive and curated versions of items that everyone has (basic cashmere Loro Piana), or investment in education, these forms of inconspicuous consumption of the elites, whether the culturally rich aspirational creatives or just the rich, are based on purchasing goods and services that improve well being (physical and intellectual) and are meant to make life easier.
Why is the creative class so important for the economy? Why should brands care about the creative class? (Richard Florida)
What is a luxury brand today? What makes a brand ‘luxury’? (Books from beginning of course)
Can luxury brands appeal to the creative class? How and why?
How will intelligent (inconspicuous) consumption influence luxury brands in the future?
Intelligent Consumption: The birth of new sustainable business models or a form of snobbism?
The concept of luxury as well as the concept of beauty have proven to be a dynamic process in our society. The elites who dictate what is good and what is bad taste work in cycles, assigning different values for different aspects of social lives, what Bourdieu called social capital, cultural capital and economic capital.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the new elite, called creative class by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett in her book The Sum of Small Things and that is driving the world’s economy and setting trends that are shaping popular culture, its new way of consuming luxury, Intelligent Consumption, which is focus on conspicuous production, benefits for society and is based on values completely different from the ones of Veblen’s leisure class. The paper also pretends to explore how Intelligent Consumption is distinguishing itself from conspicuous consumption, the signs, symbols and philosophies it is embodying.
