Concepts Of Luxury

1.Luxury
This section reviews the world of luxury, the concept of luxury and its differentiating factors from common brands, but also describes today 's luxury consumer and the situation of the global luxury industry.
1.1 The concept of luxury
There are various definitions to describe the concept of luxury, depending on which aspect one will focus on (Chevalier and Mazzalovo, 2012). Moreover, the concept of luxury differs through the decades and what was considered luxury in the past, such as owing a car, feels ordinary today (Kapferer and Bastien, 2012). As described by Coco Chanel: "luxury is a necessity that begins where necessity ends." (Okonkwo, 2007). Luxury doesn 't refer to needs but instead to desire and dream and what makes luxury

With the evolution of the world and the impact of democracy and globalization that lead to the change in social structures, societies still request social stratification in a different way though. The role of luxury as a social signifier remains the same, but the access to luxury had altered. Democracy enabled access to luxury from everyone owing the financial earnings (Kapferer and Bastien, 2012).
The "new luxury" describes the more personal dimension of luxury, the feelings, and experiences of the consumer (Danziger, 2005). As Okonkwo (2009) states, "Luxury is neither a product, an object, a service not is it a concept of a lifestyle. It is an identity, a philosophy and a culture."
1.1.1 The luxury brand
Likewise, there are several opinions on defining a luxury brand. In simple words, a brand is "a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these that identifies the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiates them from those of competitors" (Kotler et al., 2008). A brand, lets consumers to relate a particular product to a specific company and the opposite as well as it shapes product and companies ' images in consumers ' minds, as a result of the consumers ' interaction with a company. Regarding the company, brands are valuable intangible assets (Okonkwo, 2007). Consequently, a brand could be defined as "a set of mental associations, held by the consumer,

Luxury brands offer both functional value and emotional value to consumers, while they are selective and exclusive (Chevalier and Mazzalovo, 2012). What differentiates them from ordinary brands is the added emotional value. As Tynan et al. (2009) supports, luxury brands and ordinary brands at the opposite ends of a scale, where consumers decide where the other ends and another begins. Hence, it can be said that consumers perception defines if a brand is luxurious or not, and that "A brand is a luxury when it is perceived as such" (Kapferer and Bastien, 2012).
1.2 Luxury characteristics
Luxury brands differ greatly from products of the same categories. The characteristics of luxury brands and goods go beyond necessity and functional benefits (Heine, 2012). Opposed to tangible products ' functional benefits, luxury goods deliver intangible emotional, social and psychological benefits to consumers (Okonkwo, 2007).
According to Heine (2012), price, quality, aesthetics, rarity, extraordinariness, and symbolism are the unique characteristics needed in order to consider as luxurious a product or a brand.
1.3 Luxury industry and its