(Not) Made in Italy: Can Sustainability and Luxury Co-exist?

Abstract

In the past, luxury often resonated with a tradition, superior quality, and a pampered buying experience, something that only very privileged few could afford. In recent years, the meaning of luxury has become profoundly different and transitioned into a phenomenon that primarily focuses on selling expensive designer brand names with a mere illusion of exclusiveness and superior quality to the masses. As a result of the mass luxury phenomena, a designer handbag or watch no longer serves the same purpose as before. Today owning a luxury brands does not transmit reliable information about its wearer’s socioeconomic status or background. With such dramatic changes in luxury industry, a large body of consumer research has looked into understanding why individuals seek luxury brands and high-end logo-ed merchandise across the globe. However, until recently, a rather unexplored area remains in the domain of ‘sustainable’ consumption of luxury brands. The overall question arises of the role of consumers with regards to sustainable practices in luxury industry and how these practices influence decisions or intentions to indulge in a behavior. For instance, does it matter to the consumer if a ‘Made in Italy’ handbag was actually made (in-part) off-shore in a factory? Does lack of transparency in manufacturing process and information play any role in forcing consumers to rethink about their perception of luxury brand and, of course, luxury itself? This chapter outlines a conceptual framework that explores factors that influence perception on consumption of sustainable luxury. It is built upon the idea that luxury brands acts as a psychological meaning of self-expression and symbolic association that individuals aspire to create or maintain. The ultimate goal of this chapter is to explore whether consumers are increasingly becoming conscious of the adverse effects of the social, moral, and environmental imbalances created by luxury brands. Based on existing theoretical and empirical insights from Theory of Impression Management and Value-Attitude-Behavior paradigm, it becomes evident that psychological determinants, such as symbolic value perception (i.e., self-directed and others-directed perception of the symbolic association with luxury bands), tendency to conform, moral judgment (i.e., ability to rationally engage one’s knowledge in performing actions that are responsible to the society), and hedonism, as well as individuals’ attitude toward and involvement with sustainable luxury brands can represent antecedents of intentions to purchase sustainable luxury. This exploratory work will be first of its kind and will contribute to the limited literature on consumers’ perception toward sustainable luxury.