140 Luxury Research J., Vol. 2, Nos.

1/2, 2021

Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts?

A cross-country empirical analysis

Jean-Noël Kapferer*
INSEEC U.,
43 Quai de Grenelle,
75015 Paris, France
Email: jnkapferer@inseec.com
*Corresponding author

Pierre Valette-Florence
IAE Grenoble,
525 Avenue Centrale,
BP 4738040 Grenoble Cedex 9, France
Email: pierre.valette-florence@iae-grenoble.fr

Abstract: The term’ luxury fashion’ is used to refer to a specific segment

within the fashion category, but the intrinsic meanings of the words ‘luxury’
and ‘fashion’ have little in common. Although both luxury and fashion aim to
ignite distinction and desire, they have opposite relationships with temporality.
Moreover, the management of fashion brands differs fundamentally from the
management of luxury brands. But how do consumers perceive these concepts?
Do they perceive them as opposites? The authors analyse consumers’
perceptions of 60 high-end brands from various sectors and across six countries
(USA, China, Japan, Brazil, Germany, and France) to find that perceptions of
products as luxury brands contribute positively to their desirability, whereas
(with the exception of China) perceptions of products as fashion brands
negatively affect their desirability. This study shows that luxury brands should
be managed cautiously; if they become too fashionable, their pricing and
desirability may be jeopardised over time.

Keywords: luxury; fashion; cross cultural; business model; dream; China.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kapferer, J-N. and

Valette-Florence, P. (2021) ‘Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts?
A cross-country empirical analysis’, Luxury Research J., Vol. 2, Nos. 1/2,
pp.140–159.

Biographical notes: Jean-Noël Kapferer is a world renowned academic

authority and researcher on luxury. An HEC Paris graduate, PhD Kellogg
Business School (USA). He analyses the international evolution of luxury, its
brands and business models at INSEEC Luxury. He is the co-author of
The Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands,
and How Luxury Brands can Grow yet Remain Rare. He extensively publishes
in the best rated international journals and teaches at the Luxury Business
Institute (Shanghai and Seoul) and in the HEC Paris EMBA Luxury major.

Copyright © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 141

Pierre Valette-Florence is a Full Professor in Marketing, Luxury Branding and

Quantitative Methods at Grenoble-IAE, Université Grenoble Alpes in France.
He has extensively published in highly recognised scientific journals, such as,
among others, the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business Ethics,
International Marketing Review, European Journal of Marketing, Psychology
and Marketing, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of
Advertising Research, in the fields of luxury branding, consumer behavior and
multivariate data analysis. He is the lead author of a forthcoming chapter
entitled ‘Lifestyle and sport: emulation marketing’, in the American
Psychological Association (APA) Handbook of Consumer Psychology (2021).

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Are luxury
and fashion opposite concepts?’ presented at The Global Fashion Management
Conference, Paris, 11–14 July 2019.

1 Introduction

The words ‘luxury fashion’ are now commonly used to designate a specific segment of
fashion and, by extension, a specific category of luxury. Luxury fashion is an aspect of
personal luxury (Cox, 2013; Bain & Company, 2020); it includes goods such as couture
apparel, ready-to-wear clothing, and accessories. Luxury fashion brands are ubiquitous.
They have gained worldwide visibility, brand awareness, and reputation; duty-free zones
and high-end department stores could not exist without them (Soo, 2013). Luxury brands
attract public attention and engagement and create ‘buzz’ on social networks. Moreover,
many academic researchers have focused on luxury fashion, often treating it as a product
category represented by world-famous brands (Dopico and Porral, 2012;
Fionda and Moore, 2009; Ko and Megehee, 2012; Phau et al., 2015; Wu et al., 2015)
without attending to the underlying concept of luxury fashion itself.
At the conceptual level, referring to high-end brands in the apparel business as
‘luxury fashion brands’ recognises the brands exist at the junction of two streams that
offer beauty, distinction and social construction of identity: luxury and fashion. Luxury
fashion brands have become associated with fashion authorities and fashion houses
known for very high quality and prestige (De Barnier et al., 2012), such as Gucci, Louis
Vuitton, Chanel, and Dior. However, the balance between luxury and fashion is fragile:
Some brands (e.g., Bottega Venetta, Loro Piana, Brioni, Canalli, Zegna) lean toward the
luxury side, whereas others (e.g., Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Jacobs, Dolce Gabbana) lean
toward the fashion side. The balance is also sensitive to the relative proportions of
products in the accessible, intermediate and inaccessible price ranges.
Generally, fashion brands are not luxury brands and vice versa. Fashion brands need
to be creative but don’t have to be expensive. They focus on the look of the clothing
rather than on its intrinsic quality as the product is not designed to last. Most of these
brands are price-accessible. They need to be made in low wages countries in order to
reduce their production costs. A fortiori, the very low priced, fast rotating brands called
‘fast fashion’ (e.g., Zara, C&A, H&M, Mango, Uniqlo) lack the quality attached to
luxury brands and have been criticised for lack of sustainability. In reaction, slow fashion
claims manufacturing in respect to people, environment and animals. Fast-fashion brands
work with bureaux de style (brand-design offices) rather than recognised designers, and
142 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

quickly copy what they see on the catwalks in the fashion défilés (parades) of the next
season’s haute couture.
Yet the terms ‘luxury’ and ‘fashion’ did not always refer to different concepts.
According to Godart (2011), fashion is an offspring of luxury. Greek philosophers
analysed luxury and its consequences on society’s well-being long before they analysed
fashion. Only later, with the rise of the bourgeoisie and the restrictions imposed by
sumptuary laws to prevent the bourgeoisie from dressing as nobles, was fashion
emancipated from luxury. Industrialisation accelerated the rise of fashion; new factories
were able to match the volume of consumer demand. However, the fashion industry has
had to stimulate this demand each season to match its capacity. Since then, fashion has
become a global ecosystem that organises the repeated stimulation of consumers’ desires,
season after season. The large-scale emancipation of fashion has relegated luxury to
handmade products, craftsmanship, and long-lasting classicism. The more fashion has
been emancipated, the greater its opposition to luxury. Although fashion and luxury
intersect, they occupy two different territories of meaning and refer to two different
socioeconomic systems.
Conceptually what is the meaning of fashion? There are three meanings:
a the word fashion is often used to refer to a specific industry (clothing)
b it is also an efficient system to adapt demand to supply by means of telling
consumers what should be the appropriate appearance at a particular point in time
c beyond clothing, it also refers to the trend of the year (for instance for first names).
Repeated newness is at the core of fashion. Fashion does not have the cult of the past,
history, heritage. According to Hethorn and Ulasewicz (2008), fashion includes the
generation and consumption of products that go in and out of style. The concept of
fashion is one of change: A person may feel fashionable one day but desire a change the
following week. Crane (2000) refers to fashion as phenomena that are new but rapidly
and widely accepted. Today, no single fashion acts as a mandatory style for all; there are
many sources of inspiration and many ways of being ‘in fashion’ through a multiplicity
of brands.
Furthermore, there are many definitions of luxury, because it is a subjective notion.
However, Godin (2009) accurately refers to luxury as “needlessly expensive objects,”
that is, objects for which the (high) price has no relationship to functional value. But what
is the source of this extra value? In a factor analysis of the three most popular scales of
luxury perception, De Barnier et al. (2012) identify five factors that categorise objects as
luxuries: creativity, elitism (i.e., not for everybody), very high quality that combines
know-how with history and tradition, powerful branding, and hedonism/refinement. As a
result of these factors, the concept of luxury is associated to rare, expensive, and made to
last. Heritage, time, excellence and social stratification are at the heart of luxury.
Naturally these attributes are not evenly present in the three luxury segments: accessible,
intermediate and high luxury. The value of many high luxury products thus increases
over time: Consider Burgundy or Bordeaux Chateaux wines, Ferrari automobiles, Rolex
Daytona and Jaeger Lecoultre Reverso watches, or Hermès Kelly bags. Unlike clothing,
which loses its value as soon as it is no longer in fashion, such iconic products withstand
the erosion of time.
Table 1 shows the semantic oppositions between fashion and luxury.
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 143

Table 1 Contrasting the meanings of fashion and luxury

Fashion Luxury
Ephemeral Long-lasting
Fast manufacturing Slow manufacturing
Catching the spirit of today Reinterpretation of the past
Timely Timeless
Loses value over time Gains value over time
Born of nothing Linked to tradition and heritage
Normal quality Durable quality
Spread to many Not for all
Desire for affiliation, social integration Desire for distinctiveness, value by singularity
Imitation process, bandwagon effect Self-elevation motivation, snob effect

In essence, these oppositions relate to time, diffusion, and product quality. Luxury brands
are purposely timeless; their highest range delivers exceptional, durable quality that
includes lifelong guarantees of repair. As a result, clients do not need to systematically or
seasonally repurchase luxury brands. In contrast, the business models of fashion brands
rest on repeat purchase. For fashion brands, high quality is not a prerequisite, because
when garments are out of fashion, they are no longer used. Fashion talks about the look
of the clothing (long skirts, mini skirts) not its intrinsic quality, its precious fabrics and
craftsmanship.
Luxury and fashion provide very different benefits to clients; luxury brands provide
the distinction of owning products that most others do not own, because most others
cannot afford them. Perceived exclusivity is the “name of the game” (Kapferer and
Valette Florence, 2016). In contrast, fashion is a system for adapting demand to supply
(Barthes, 2006) that relies on imitation drives, mimetic desires, and contagious similarity
(Girard and Gregory, 1979). Fashion addicts are followers who create bandwagon effects
(Rocamora and Smelik, 2016), whereas luxury buyers stop buying brands when they
become too successful or widely adopted. Reflecting the “snob effect,” they seek to move
to more expensive brands that are endowed with an aura of exclusivity (Amaldoss and
Jain 2005).
Yet, even accessible in price, fashion provides distinction to all those who can follow
it relentlessly. Unlike luxury brands–especially haute couture, which aims at the rich–
’street fashion’ targets the ordinary consumer. Street fashion originated in the United
Kingdom, where the upper class was conservative with regard to clothing (Crane, 2000).
The success of these new brands shows that the trickle-down theory of fashion diffusion
is not universal, and there also is a trickle-up process.
The contrasts in Table 1 raise the question of how and why luxury brands become
fashion brands and vice versa. As to luxury brands, why did Louis Vuitton for instance
ventured out in the apparel fashion business? As the essence of fashion is repeated
newness, it is the only way to make clients repeatedly come back to stores. It also brings
a cool factor to the brand and makes it the focus of the media and social networks
(Phan et al., 2011). As to fashion brands, their relentless pursuit of newness is financially
exhausting: to reduce their commercial risks they need products they can keep in their
range over the years and reach the high margins of luxury ( Som and Blanckaert 2015).
144 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

2 Luxury and fashion: two different business models

The term ‘luxury fashion brands’ is now currently used. It refers to apparel brands that
also sell accessories (leather bags, jewelry, fragrance) source of increased margins. Yet
the managerial reality is that there is a strategic divide between brands that lean toward
fashion and those that lean toward luxury. Managers cannot manage the two types of
brands in the same way, as their business models, if not completely contradictory, are
incompatible (Table 2).
Table 2 Contrasting the two business models of fashion and luxury

Fashion business model Luxury business model

Normal margins
Normal quality of fabrics
Manufacturing licenses are acceptable
Relocation in low-labour-cost countries
Distribution and marketing licenses are
acceptable
Ranges from low to high creativity
(fast fashion)
Fast and frequent change of collections
Full price early in the season, then price falls
Rebates, discounts, super-sales
Factory outlets, special internet sites
Entire collection available on the Internet
Fast brand stretch to other product categories
Very high margins
Highest quality of fabrics
No licenses, full control of manufacturing
‘Made in’ as source of added value, symbolic
gap
No licenses, full control of retail experience
High creativity designed to last through time
Iconic models to be lifted each year
Stable prices during the season or Veblen
pricing
No discounts
No outlets
Not all of collection available on the Internet
Slow, progressive brand extension

Taking Moncler -one of the hottest brands of high-end sportswear apparel in the world-
many would call it a fashion luxury brand. Remo Ruffini, an Italian entrepreneur,
transformed Moncler, a bankrupt French company–the inventor of down jackets, sold
mostly to mountaineers–into a very successful brand targeted to well off city dwellers for
year-round use. As of March 2021, Moncler’s market capitalisation was €12,517 billion.
Yet according to Remo Ruffini, CEO of Moncler, ‘We’re luxury but we’re not a fashion
brand…. We’re not trying to change our face every season. We do something
contemporary but also consistent, products you can use for five to ten years. It is
important to maintain the classic looks our fans expect’ (The Telegraph, September 30th,
2016). Significantly, the CEO’s emphasis is on ‘not being a fashion brand’ . How does
managing a luxury brand differ from managing a fashion brand? One difference is that
the luxury industry has created long selling icons, that is, well-known, nearly holy objects
that epitomise brands and attest to their sacred uniqueness, value, supremacy, and history
(Dion and Borraz, 2015). Hermès, for example, has the Kelly and Birkin bags; Rolex has
the Daytona or Oyster perpetual watches; Chanel has its N°5 fragrance; and Porsche has
the 911 model. Icons play an essential role: They represent consumers’ dreams. That is,
consumers dream not just of owning a Rolex brand but of owning the Rolex Daytona. In
turn, icons are a blessing for the executives of luxury firms, because they represent
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 145

eternal sources of cash flows and cushion against the vagaries in consumer demands.
Moreover, icons are resilient to time; they are long-sellers, as opposed to fashion’s
seasonal best-sellers. Unlike fashion brands, icons act as milestones of the luxury value
of luxury brands. They withstand the passage of time and propel brands to becoming
long-term investments. For example, the Mercedes ‘S’ Class has reigned over the
automobile luxury market since 2005. Although icons get systematically upgraded to
remain relevant, their desirability transcends trends or fashion (Baruth 2018).
Thus, in addition to having different perceived attributes, fashion and luxury have
different business models. Fashion houses cannot be managed like luxury brands
(Kapferer and Bastien 2012). Luxury brands control 100% of their value chains, from
sourcing of rare fabrics and materials to final retail customer experiences and setting of
retail prices. The first thing fashion brand operators do when they decide to become
luxury brands is buy back their licenses and take control of their production and retail
distribution through directly operated stores (DOSs). Coming from fashion, this is how
Chanel became luxury. This shift grants them direct contact with end consumers, helps
them build own customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and allows them to
manage consumer experiences across channels. Whereas luxury brands never discount or
hold super-sales, fashion houses must do both, because by definition, when seasons are
over, their products are less in fashion. This seasonality has two consequences:

• Fashion brands must achieve their earnings as soon as possible at the beginning of
the season, selling at full price. This time pressure is the reason some brands decide
to sell their products to trade representatives before their fashion défilés take place.
Moreover, brands such as Burberry have innovated by allowing end clients to watch
their fashion défilés on Facebook or WeChat and order by clicking any product they
like; the customers receive their orders within weeks.
• When a season has ended, fashion brands begin to discount their products to empty
stores and make room for new collections. Because luxury brands sell products that
must last and are far less dependent on fashion, they do not have to reduce their
prices. Thus, a reliable way to diagnose whether a brand follows a fashion strategy or
a luxury strategy is to check its price policy.
Fashion brands also sell in factory outlets. For example, in the USA, factory outlets
represent 40% of the sales of Ralph Lauren Polo, or those of Coach. Specialised websites
that sell last season’s outfits also help sell leftovers. Moreover, because fashion does not
last, fashion brands do not need to be obsessed with high quality or adhere strictly to
being manufactured in their home countries. Fashion brands prefer to locate their
production facilities in countries in which manufacturing costs are low, whereas luxury
brands distinguish themselves by leveraging all the intangible elements that make them
exclusive, unique, singular, and hard to copy. One such lever is the country of origin. For
example, Bottega Veneta is proudly manufactured in Venice, Gucci is manufactured in
Florence and Tuscany, Corneliani is produced in Mantova (Italy), and Yves Saint Laurent
is manufactured in France. The business models of luxury and fashion brands are very
different, and convergence between them is hard to find. Consumers must choose one or
the other.
146 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

3 Research questions

The purpose of our research is to assess consumers’ perceptions of the gap between
luxury and fashion brands and test whether clients of high-end products perceive fashion
and luxury as very distinct if not opposites. Because most of the criteria used to compare
luxury and fashion are professional (i.e., business models) or academic, the general
public is unlikely to be familiar with them. Therefore, we ask: Does the public clearly
differentiate between these two closely connected–and sometimes intersecting–concepts?
The media, for example, portrays many luxury brands as fashion brands and vice versa,
and some luxury brands take part in the fashion défilés of Paris, New York, and Milan in
order to gain coolness and reignite the social networks’ attention. Moreover, some luxury
brand accessories have become fast-rotating, quickly changing fashion items.
Accordingly, we pose two major research questions and offer two corresponding
hypotheses:
First, do consumers clearly identify fashion and luxury as distinct concepts? We
hypothesise that consumers make this distinction, because over time, luxury has earned
the social perception of being a world apart (Berry, 1994; Thomas, 2007;
Turngate, 2009). Although most people might not be aware of the underlying business
models of luxury brands and fashion brands, their experiences of the brands leads them to
differentiate clearly between the two concepts. Thus,
H1 Consumers perceive luxury and fashion not only as distinct but as opposite
constructs.
Second, both luxury and fashion aim to create perceptions of distinction and desirability,
to make consumers dream of the brands. But which perception drives the highest desire
for brands, the highest dream? If, according to H1, consumers perceive the concepts of
fashion and luxury as distinct, what is the relative weight of each of these two levers ? If
they are perceived as contradictory, one of the two concepts should weigh negatively on
the construction of desire among prospective buyers of high-end products. In such a case
we further hypothesise that fashion is more likely to have this negative effect on
desirability. However, our reasoning does not apply to street wear or street fashion, which
pursues high volume at low cost and therefore does not aim to be qualified as luxury.
We have shown (Table 1) the extent to which fashion and luxury differ with regard to
their relationships with time: Unlike pure fashion brands, luxury brands make explicit
references to their heritage, and legendary founders–even if their pasts are brief. Luxury
brands must invent their own tradition. For research purposes, we need to ask: When we
control for tradition, does perception of a brand as fashion still have a negative influence
on the construction of desire for high-end products? We hypothesise that the answer is
no; luxury is timeless but fashion brings a dimension of relevance, coolness so it is more
contemporary, sexier, more reflective of the spirit of the time, and more relevant to
younger generations, Y or Z.
H2 When perceptions of tradition are controlled for, perceptions of luxury and fashion
positively influence the desirability of high-end brands.
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 147

4 Methodology: brands, countries, and sample

To assess these research questions and their two associated hypotheses, we used brands
as units of analyses. We selected a sample of 60 high-end international brands from seven
sectors: apparel, leather and accessories, watches and jewelry, automobiles, hospitality,
spirits, and cosmetics. We chose well-known brands for which our respondents would be
likely to have already constructed images.
To avoid ethnocentrism and assess the international validity of our conclusions, we
implemented our research in six countries, six luxury and fashion markets. In each
country, we selected a sample of consumers (men and women) who declared they had
recently bought a list of products above a certain price threshold. We established this
filtering price according to previous research on the minimum price of luxury
(Kapferer and Laurent 2016) in 21 product categories in seven countries. Specifically, we
use the median price revealed by that research to qualify our respondents. We recruited
respondents from local ‘affluent panels’ managed by BVA, a major international market
research organisation. We interviewed a total of 3,217 persons. Table 3 presents the
interviewees’ main characteristics by country. These respondents, adult consumers of
high-end products, avoid the limitations associated with relying on observations from
undergraduate students who fill in questionnaires to obtain college-course credits.
Luxury is a global business; luxury brands are ubiquitous around the world, available
in luxury malls and online. However, people’s understanding of the word ‘luxury’ may
differ from one country to another. The English word ‘luxury’ is a Western word, written
and pronounced in much the same way in various Western languages: ‘luxe’ in French,
‘luxus’ in German, ‘lusso’ in Italian, ‘lujo’ in Spanish, and ‘luxo’ in Portuguese.
However, it is ‘she chi’ in Chinese. The same is true for ‘fashion,’ which translates as
‘mode’ in French and German and ‘moda’ in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Swedish,
but ‘shi shang’ in Chinese.
Accordingly, we believe that luxury researchers should be cautious about generalising
results from one country to another. We chose to run our study in six countries, to sample
representatives of both emerging and mature economies, as well as both Asian and
Western cultures. The six countries are the USA, China, Japan, France, Germany, and
Brazil. They represent major luxury markets (Bain & Company 2019).
We presented each interviewee with a subset of 15 brands, drawn from a list of 60
globally known, internationally distributed luxury brands. These 15 brands represented
the same product categories as those of the full sample of brands. We limited the number
of brands to avoid the likely questionnaire abandonment that would occur if we required
interviewees to respond to questions about all 60 brands. Cumulatively the data were
collected on all 60 brands. We asked interviewees to give their perceptions of each of the
brands according to the following dimensions:
1 Do you know the brand ( aided awareness)?
2 Have you previously purchased any product of this brand?
3 For you, is it a luxury brand?
4 Does the brand have a long history and tradition?
5 For you, is the brand fashion?
6 How desirable is the brand? (i.e., Is it a brand you dream of?).
148 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

Table 3 Gender, age, and net income characteristics by country

Country
Gender Size Total
France USA China Brazil Germany Japan
Men N 267 313 324 337 292 283 1816
% 50.1% 62.5% 48.2% 62.6% 57.0% 61.4% 56.5%
Women N 266 188 348 201 220 178 1401
% 49.9% 37.5% 51.8% 37.4% 43.0% 38.6% 43.5%
Total N 533 501 672 538 512 461 3217
Age
18–24 N 74 66 86 107 91 56 480
% 13.9% 13.2% 12.8% 19.9% 17.8% 12.1% 14.9%
25–34 N 106 145 204 196 140 179 970
% 19.9% 28.9% 30.4% 36.4% 27.3% 38.8% 30.2%
35–44 N 117 121 188 124 127 57 734
% 22.0% 24.2% 28.0% 23.0% 24.8% 12.4% 22.8%
45–54 N 99 99 141 80 121 80 620
% 18.6% 19.8% 21.0% 14.9% 23.6% 17.4% 19.3%
55–75 N 137 70 53 31 33 89 413
% 25.7% 14.0% 7.9% 5.8% 6.4% 19.3% 12.8%
Total N 533 501 672 538 512 461 3217
Net income per
month
< €3,000 N 203 96 206 236 117 106 964
% 38.1% 19.2% 30.6% 43.9% 22.9% 22.9% 29.9%
€3,000–€4,999 N 177 142 201 160 188 169 1037
% 33.2% 36.1% 29.9% 29.7% 36.7% 36.6% 32.2%
€5,000–€9,999 N 88 181 162 62 144 117 754
% 16.5% 24.2% 24.1% 11.5% 28.1% 25.4% 23.4%
€10,000–€14,999 N 18 59 41 18 24 32 192
% 3.4% 11.8% 6.1% 3.3% 4.7% 6.9% 5.9%
> €15,000 N 16 28 15 19 13 19 110
% 3.0% 5.6% 2.2% 3.5% 2.5% 4.1% 3.4%
Total N 533 501 672 538 512 461 3217

Because we asked each respondent to randomly evaluate each of 15 brands, relying on

ordinary Likert-scale ratings would have been too time consuming. Therefore, to avoid
lengthy questionnaires, we asked respondents to answer in a binary way, such as, ‘ For
you, is the brand luxury or not luxury? Is the brand fashion or not fashion?’. Because the
respondents are real-life buyers of luxury brands, they should be sufficiently
knowledgeable about the brands to express clear-cut opinions about each question.
The randomness of our data collection procedure produced a number of missing
values per respondent; therefore, we averaged our results for each country. This
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 149

averaging led to aggregated data (in which the 60 brands represented the observations).
We use the mean averages of the variables as percentages. We apply this aggregated
dataset to all the statistical analyses.

5 Results

To address our first research question and H1 (perceived distinctiveness/opposition

between luxury and fashion), we ran six principal component analyses (PCAs) (Abdi and
Williams 2010 ), one for each country, using respondents’ answers about the 60 brands
on four relevant dimensions:
1 dream value (desirability)
2 luxury perception
3 fashion perception
4 tradition (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 PCA results, proximity of four concepts, in six countries (see online version for colours)

The PCA method helps reduce the dimensionality of the data and can produce graphics to
display the underlying links across the relevant variables. These analyses show that for all
countries except China (66%), two principal components explain more than 70% of total
variance. With regard to components F1 and F2, the graphical representation directly
depicts covariation or opposition between any given variables.
Figure 1 shows the overall pattern, as well as idiosyncratic differences by country. On
the whole, brand desirability (‘a brand I dream of’) and luxury appear close together in
the same quadrant. Luxury feeds dreams; luxury professionals often present luxury
brands as ‘dream brands.’ The six PCAs also reveal that brand desirability, luxury, and
tradition appear on the same side of the graph and, in some cases, within the same
150 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

quadrant, whereas fashion appears on the opposite side. Not surprisingly, clear
positioning in the fashion category reflects remoteness from tradition and portrays
remoteness from the concept of luxury itself.
Table 4 Loadings for the four concepts in six countries: components 1 and 2

Countries Components Dream Luxury Tradition Fashion

Brazil F1 0.810 0.630 0.603 –0.559
F2 0.281 0.649 –0.477 0.624
China F1 0.804 0.508 0.816 –0.614
F2 0.215 0.752 –0.205 0.631
France1 F1 0.777 0.534 0.801 –0.845
F2 0.027 0.826 –0.269 0.292
Germany F1 0.821 0.744 0.451 –0.802
F2 0.087 –0.570 0.858 0.043
Japan F1 0.588 0.605 0.498 –0.200
F2 0.115 0.369 –0.224 0.895
USA F1 0.604 0.526 0.339 –0.493
F2 –0.294 –0.485 0.736 –0.370

Nevertheless, Figure 1 shows that in all six countries, fashion is not symmetrical with
luxury perceptions. Both qualities can coexist in brands, with different levels of each
quality. Thus, some brands evoke more luxury than fashion or vice versa. A closer look at
the loadings in Table 4 shows that for all countries, the first component F1 relates to an
overall orientation to luxury brand desirability, structured around luxury, dream, and
tradition, but opposed to fashion. The second component F2 combines fashion and luxury
for all countries except Germany, so these two dimensions can covary in the same
direction and lead to “ephemeral luxury” (Kapferer and Bastien 2012). In Germany
however, we find a different opposition between tradition and luxury. Clearly, with
regard to these two main components, there is a need for more refined analyses of the
relationships of brand dream, luxury, tradition, and fashion. These results validate H1.
To address the second research question and H2, we ran multiple regressions using
desirability (the brand dream) as the dependent variable. We ran two sets of multiple
regressions, with parameter estimates that we systematically bootstrapped with 5,000
replications.
The first set of regressions included tradition, because the previous PCA results
revealed tradition’s link with luxury and fashion orientations. By including tradition, we
can determine the relative weights of luxury and fashion on brand desirability while
controlling for tradition. For this first set of regressions, our sample consists of 60 high-
end brands per country, because the unit of analysis was the set of 60 selected luxury
brands. Table 5 (left side) shows these regressions, as depicted in Figure 2. Figure 3
presents the regression results when car brands are omitted from the analysis; car brands
rank highest as dream brands among all luxury brands and therefore could have
influenced the overall pattern of results.
In a second set of regressions (Table 5, right side), we ran additional analyses,
focusing only on the specific category of apparel brands. For this set of regressions, we
reduced the sample size to 15 brands per country. We also dropped the luxury variable
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 151

from the regressions, because luxury as a perception is most highly correlated with
desirability (see Table 6).
Table 5 Regression results for desirability (dream factor)

Standardised coefficients
Full sample of 60 brands Sample of apparel brands only
Country Model Beta* / ** R²Dream Beta* / ** R²Dream
Brazil Luxury 0.463 0,306 0.039
Fashion –0.227 –0.197
Tradition 0.109 –0.003
China Luxury 0.301 0,328 0.188
Fashion –0.114 0.431
Tradition 0.372 0.267
Inseefrance Luxury 0.192 0,338 0.279
Fashion –0.429 –0.135
Tradition 0.469 0.599
USA Luxury 0.353 0,202 0.122
Fashion –0.219 0.192
Tradition 0.041 0.320
Germany Luxury 0.521 0,425 0.336
Fashion –0.034 –0.626
Tradition 0.394 0.068
Japan Luxury 0.585 0,364 0.168
Fashion –0.193 –0.065
Tradition –0.010 0.418
Notes: *Numbers in italics are non-significant; those in bold type and italics are
significant at p < 0.1; and those in bold type are significant at p < 0.05. **
Underlined numbers are equivalent between countries.
The left-side columns of Table 5 show the regression results for each of the six countries
for the full sample of luxury products. The right-side columns show the results for luxury
fashion products only (e.g., apparel, accessories). With regard to the full sample of luxury
products, we note some differences in terms of intensity across countries, but the overall
pattern remains the same. Except in France, perception of a product as a luxury brand is
the best positive predictor of its high-end brand desirability. Although France is a major
luxury-producing and luxury-exporting country, luxury perception does not weigh
strongly on brand desirability among French clients of high-end products and brands.
Instead, brand tradition/heritage is the major lever of high-end brand desirability.
Overall, fashion perception weighs strongly on brand desirability in high-end
segments. Perceptions of a product as a fashion brand has a negative effect on desirability
in all six countries, though with varying intensity. For example, fashion perception
strongly negatively affects the brand dream in France, but its impact is less negative in
three countries (Brazil, the USA, and Japan) and statistically non-significant in two
countries (China and Germany). Tradition/heritage is most influential in France,
Germany, and China.
152 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

These results show that despite huge differences in cultural and economic
development (Hofstede 1991; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 2020) the construction
of desire in the high-end consumer segment follows more or less the same pattern.
Overall, perceptions of luxury are the strongest lever of brand dream (brand desirability),
followed by brand tradition/heritage, whereas perceptions of fashion is a deterrent of the
brand dream (brand desirability), except in China and Germany, where the fashion beta
coefficient is negative but non-significant. We also find some interesting country
specificities:
• In France, brand desirability in the high-end segment depends on history and
tradition. That is, tradition beats luxury. Moreover, for the high-end segment,
perception of a product as fashion clearly deters desirability. This result is not
surprising: Ever since Louis XIV, France has promoted the importance of its past as
a unique source of legitimisation, a lever of added value, and an eternal basis of
reinvention. China has somehow espoused a similar vision, echoing the Confucian
philosophy of respect for ancestors, masters, and parents. High-end brand desire is
built first by tradition and then by perceptions of luxury. Within the high-end
segment in France, perceptions of a product as fashion has the most negative effect
on brand desirability.
• In the USA, Brazil, and Japan, the weight of history/tradition on high-end brand
desirability is not statistically significant. Although we might expect this result from
two young countries that worship the future, its association with Japan is surprising.
Our hypothesis is that the Japanese worship very high quality, and luxury represents
the highest craftsmanship, care for details, and the utmost quality.
Figure 2 graphically summarises the findings.

Figure 2 How high-end brand desirability is built: a cross-cultural comparison

Despite our findings, the question arises: How valid are our analyses of a sample of 60
high-end brands, drawn from many sectors? The most desirable (dreamed-of) brands in
the world are Rolls Royce, Bentley, and Ferrari; these brands are not only the most
expensive ‘hard luxury’ brands but also the most rich in heritage. They can not be
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 153

categorised as fashion or ‘in fashion.’ Therefore, our results arguably might be spurious,
reflecting heterogeneity in the sample of 60 high-end products. To address this question,
we reran the same analyses but without automobile brands. As Figure 3 shows, the
pattern of results remains the same for each country.

Figure 3 How high-end brand desirability is built: analysis excluding cars

Finally, we analysed the prediction pattern in the specific category of apparel brands (see
the list of brands in Appendix). This analysis represents an acid test, because apparel is
the category in which consumers build their appearances and identities to convey a
contemporary, seductive look through their clothing. Because of the small sample of
apparel brands (n = 18), and because the correlation between dream (desirability) and
luxury is always very high (see Table 6), we ran six multiple regressions with only
fashion and tradition as predictors of the dream (desirability of the high-end brand). The
results in the right-side columns of Table 5 focus on high-end apparel brands. They show
very interesting differences between countries:
• For apparel brands, tradition is still an important desirability factor in France, but it
also is important in Japan and, to a lesser extent, in the USA and China.
• The effect of fashion perception is fairly negative in Germany, Brazil, and France; it
is positively related to brand dream in China and the USA, but it has a statistically
non-significant effect in Japan. Being in fashion is a major lever of desirability for
the high-end apparel brands of China and the USA.
In summary, our results partially confirm H2: Although luxury perception has a positive
impact on dream in all six countries, fashion perception continues to have a negative
influence on dream in all countries, contrary to our expectations. However, when we
focus only on high-end apparel brands, we find that fashion has a positive impact on
dream in both China and the US.
154 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

Table 6 Correlation matrices for apparel only

Brazil
Variables Dream Fashion Tradition Luxury
Dream 1,000 -0.197 0.018 0.413
Fashion –0.197 1.000 -0.109 0.101
Tradition 0.018 -0.109 1,000 –0.054
Luxury 0.413 0.101 -0.054 1,000
China
Dream 1,000 0.350 0.138 0.696
Fashion 0.350 1,000 –0.301 0.270
Tradition 0.138 –0.301 1,000 –0.012
Luxury 0.696 0.270 –0.012 1,000
France
Dream 1,000 –0.225 0.517 0.435
Fashion –0.225 1,000 –0.602 –0.351
Tradition 0.517 –0.602 1,000 0.115
Luxury 0.435 –0.351 0.115 1,000
Germany
Dream 1,000 –0.577 0.384 0.669
Fashion –0.577 1,000 –0.721 –0.520
Tradition 0.384 –0.721 1,000 0.305
Luxury 0.669 –0.520 0.305 1,000
Japan
Dream 1,000 0.021 0.405 0.473
Fashion 0.021 1,000 0.207 0.212
Tradition 0.405 0.207 1,000 0.417
Luxury 0.473 0.212 0.417 1,000
USA
Dream 1,000 0.146 0.292 0.434
Fashion 0.146 1,000 –0.145 0.156
Tradition 0.292 –0.145 1,000 –0.010
Luxury 0.434 0.156 –0.010 1,000

6 Theoretical implications

As the first cross-cultural research on the relationships between fashion and luxury at the
perceptual level, our study confirms our hypothesis that the two concepts differ greatly
according to the symbolic meaning associated with objects and brands. Our PCAs show
that fashion stands in its own quadrant, that is, in its own perceptual space, separate from
the space in which luxury and tradition stand together. This finding confirms that luxury
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 155

brands draw value from reinterpreting the past–both creatively and non-ephemerally–
whereas fashion draws value from systematic change, the seasonal rhythms of nature, and
the present. New fashion brands are born every day, prompted by the motivation and
creativity of inventive young designers from fashion schools such as Saint Martin’s or
Parson’s in London, IFM in Paris, or Marangoni in Milan. Notably, there are no
dedicated schools of luxury, but there are specific craftsmanship programs and schools of
luxury management, that is, specialised curricula within business schools. However, to
survive as producers in particular countries, luxury brands need their countries to transmit
heritage and tradition; they need the support of professional schools and education that
sustains craftsmanship. Such support is the sine qua non for pursuing local production
based on unique know-how that is inherited from tradition.

7 Managerial implications

In managerial terms, our results indicate that though there are frequent references to
‘luxury fashion brands,’ the equilibrium between fashion and luxury is hard to find. Most
high-end brands fall toward one side or the other. For example, there is no doubt that
Hermès is a pure luxury brand; the company’s former CEO Patrick Thomas often
claimed that the company would discontinue a product as soon as it became a best-seller,
that is, ‘in fashion.’ This reaction is necessary if luxury brands want to protect their rarity,
privilege, and exclusivity. Once a luxury product has become highly fashionable–and
therefore highly sold–it becomes démodé (non-fashionable). Moreover, sales success
creates negative externalities (Amaldoss and Jain 1965), the risks of which are higher
when brands are associated with a single product category or a single iconic product.
Yet more luxury fashion brands are acting as fashion brands. Their main business
objective is to produce ‘hot’ products that create press and attract social media ‘buzz.’
Their aim is to produce annual ‘hits’ (e.g., the ‘it’ bag). Where is the luxury in these
products ? It is rarely in the manufacturing process, which is a topic the brands no longer
discuss. Nor do they talk about their country of origin. Today, the word ‘luxury’ too often
refers to rarity that is artificially created through small collections or brief, time-limited
sales on the Internet that are widely publicised to generate more demand than supply
(Kapferer and Valette-Florence 2016; Turngate 2009).
Nowhere is the divide between luxury and fashion more visible than in the recent
debate about ‘see now, buy now, wear now.’ The positions of high-end brands reveal
their underlying business model: more fashion or more luxury. The Council of Fashion
Designers of America has proposed that traditional fashion shows (reserved for an elite
group of experts and couture clients) be transformed into large-scale reality shows and
consumer events that feature in-season collections that are already in stores. Clients
would not have to wait two months after fashion shows to receive the apparel they chose
during the défilés. This proposal has the support of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a
strategy consulting organisation.
The proponents of this radical inversion (which would start with the show broadcast,
open to consumers, held before the creative défilé that is open only to professionals)
claim it is a consumer-driven change (Women’s Wear Daily, 2015)–and no one should go
against the will of consumers. They claim that in today’s Internet-driven world,
immediacy reigns and fashion must adapt. To consumers, they say: ‘You see it, you click
on it, you buy it, and you receive it immediately.’
156 J-N. Kapferer and P. Valette-Florence

Aside from ideology and language, it is interesting to note that the BCG proposal is
aimed at solving a thorny business issue that has troubled fashion brands for a long time:
the growing importance of markdowns. The goal of the proposed early consumer show is
to increase the percentage of full-price sales in an industry that is being battered by ever-
earlier super-sales and high markdowns. Without the advantage of rarity, fashion brands
are plagued by excess inventories of unsold goods.
The fashion show dispute has recreated the gap between luxury-leaning brands and
fashion-leaning brands. Luxury represents excess–excesses of creativity, craftsmanship,
detail, production time, and useless, hedonic features. By presenting the consumer show
first, the industry would be implying that sales should harness creativity, and popular
taste should reign over inspiration. However, luxury-brand producers pursue a different
vision: For them, pushing the limits of creativity is paramount, and it is they, not their
clients, who drive creativity.
Putting consumers first is the business model of fashion brands such as Coach,
Michael Kors, and Ralph Lauren Polo. They are driven by data rather than by creative
designers, and they rely on market research to identify new trends and match consumers’
evolving tastes. There are no star designers, only bureaux de style, creating ‘lifestyle
brands.’ For example, Michael Kors is an expression of the jet-set lifestyle, and Ralph
Lauren embodies the Bostonian-gentry lifestyle, as inherited from idealised notions of
British aristocracy.
Behind these differences in business models, we find that brands’ relationship to time
is the major explanatory variable that separates luxury brands from fashion brands.
Luxury brand clients can wait weeks after creative défilés before they receive their
dreamed-of garments, whereas fashion clients pursue immediacy. They cannot resist the
urges of their desires and motivations to be the first to wear new fashion. Fashion-
oriented brands must satisfy these urges as quickly as possible, before the desires vanish.
For brands that seek to cultivate luxury, our research shows that the desirability of
high-end brands–even in the apparel category–is tied first to perceived luxuriousness,
then to perceived tradition/heritage-inspired authenticity, and very little to fashion. For
the most part, fashion has a negative impact on the brand dream, which commands the
highest prices.

8 Limitations and further research

Our study has some conceptual limitations. First, because all R² values remain below
50%, additional explanatory variables could be added to our model. For example,
authenticity, which is closely linked to tradition (Morhart et al., 2015) could prove useful.
Second, because luxury brand consumption is highly symbolic (Sung et al. 2015), we
could add explanatory power to our research model by assessing the emblematic or iconic
value of the luxury brands that we studied. Recent research (Pham et al. 2018) shows that
fashion equity (i.e., degree of fashionability rather than fashion itself) can positively
influence consumers’ commitment to luxury brands; the more consumers perceive a
brand to be fashionable and desirable from a luxury perspective, the more fashion and
desirability act as positive catalysts of the relationship between brand equity and
commitment. Therefore, focusing on the equity of fashionability, rather than fashion,
could provide additional insights and better understanding of luxury brands’ desirability.
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 157

There are also practical limitations to our study. First, our approach relies on a sample
that has a wide age spectrum, raising the question of whether our results would remain
the same if we focused only on young millennial consumers, who may not share the same
aspirational needs as older consumers. Second, increasing the number of both countries
and luxury brands would be an obvious path to greater generalisation of our results. We
leave these suggestions for further theoretical and empirical investigation.

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Appendix

Brands: Luxury fashion

• Armani
• Brioni
• Burberry
• Chanel
• Dior
• Dolce & Gabbana
• Donna Karan
• Ermenegildo Zegna
• Givenchy
• Gucci
• Lacoste
• Louis Vuitton
• Marc Jacobs
 Are luxury and fashion opposite concepts? 159

• Prada
• Ralph Lauren
• Tom Ford
• Versace
• Yves Saint Laurent.