Luxury Fashion in Transition: Three Essays on Its Evolutionary Dynamics

In recent years, innovative branding strategies have played an increasingly central role in shaping the luxury fashion industry, prompting ongoing academic debates about the nature of luxury and its strategic management. This book explores these evolving facets of this industry, shedding light on their implications for branding. The first chapter investigates the implementation of co-branding in the luxury fashion sector, examining its impact on media visibility. Our findings suggest that to create a successful co-branding portfolio, luxury brands should initially collaborate with renowned brands in the same target market and only later with brands operating in other sectors. In addition, results show that reaching-up and reaching-beyond are the two co-branding types best suited to increasing overall brand awareness. The second chapter explores luxury fashion brands’ pioneering use of Web 3. Findings suggest that luxury fashion brands should exploit these technologies to reinforce the perception of scarcity, accelerate the ‘artification’ process, and innovatively convey their ancestral heritage. Nevertheless, luxury fashion brands must be particularly cautious about the risks of conveying their distinctive aesthetics ineffectively and offering experiences that do not align with the highly experiential nature of luxury. The third chapter employs Market System Dynamics (MSD) principles to analyze the status dynamics that have led to the integration of streetwear into the luxury realm. Our findings underscore the collaborative nature of status reconfiguration processes and the significant role of marketplace actors operating in distant yet interconnected markets. In addition, our results challenge the prevailing notion that a product must detach from its grassroots origins to achieve elevated status. Overall, the three chapters included in this book provide significant contributions to the luxury literature, encompassing both theoretical and managerial aspects.