4 Traditional Types of Luxury - But Are They Actually Of Value?

I’m on a mission to elevate luxury.

I believe that the category of goods and services that are regarded as “luxury” requires elevation because, although significant facets of traditional and trendy luxury do represent real excellence, there are several elements of what today passes for “luxury’” that are at best… dubious.

Plus, as humanity continues to build knowledge as to what constitutes true human flourishing across such diverse disciplines as psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, economics, technology, business, history, etc. - these insights ought to be integrated into the concept of luxury.

Put simply, I want to retain the best from traditional approaches to luxury and combine it with the greatest ideas yet discovered about human excellence.

When it comes to learning from the luxury tradition, I’ve found one of the most useful resources to be The Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands by Jean-Noël Kapferer and Vincent Bastien (2012, 2nd edition).

(In fact, starting this coming week we’ll be doing a Deep Dive here in Club Elevate+Aspire+ into the core section of the book, their 24 Anti-Laws of Luxury Marketing).

In the book, Kapferer and Bastien note that luxury has always had both a personal and a social component. They observe that there have been four types of luxury, and that the most successful luxury brands ultimately grow to serve all four types among their clientele, though to varying degrees depending on the particular brand and its core essence.

To me, it is interesting that these types start to reveal both what I believe is noble in the tradition of luxury as well as what is problematic…

According to Kapferer and Bastien, the four types are:

• Internalized luxury, comprising the search for an authentic experience, almost an art of living, exclusive – and therefore distinguishing you from others through a discreet elitism

• Luxury of self-expression through strong creativity and singularity

• Luxury of certain values, prestigious institutions, for those who seek status, and pursue social adjustment through conformity

• Luxury of self-affirmation relative to others, through the display of wealth and the visibility of consumption famously reserved for a minority

I would argue that many of these characteristics do contribute to a life of excellence (such as “authentic experience,” “art of living,” “self-expression,” “strong creativity/singularity,” and maybe to a certain extent, depending on the definition, “exclusivity,” “social adjustment,” “self-affirmation relative to others” and particular “prestigious institutions”). However, some of these aspects of traditional luxury are downright toxic - such as the empty status-seeking, conformity, and superficial display of crass materialism we see in “luxury” circles today.

Hence, luxury needs to be elevated. This is the start.

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