How does one define luxury?

The ultimate search engine Google provides answers to all the queries and questions of billions of people right away in seconds. On asking it to ‘define luxury’ Google in its first result through Dictionary.com says that ‘luxury is a state of great comfort and elegance, especially when involving great expense’.

In a layman’s language this statement makes perfect sense but to go into more depth and to get a better understanding of it we need to acknowledge the fact that luxury is far beyond comfort and elegance. Our perception and lifestyle are huge components for defining a subjective term like luxury. Redefining and changing the ways people quantify luxury by measuring it in terms of its cost/money value or it being a status symbol or a showcase piece are one of the reasons for writing this article, All these quantifying terms can definitely be deal breakers but in today’s time they have been moved to the second tier from the first one for any luxury enthusiast. The terms I just mentioned above have become factors that are external to one’s true self.

Defining Luxury for yourself can never be determined on the basis how people would perceive the idea of you buying anything.

Maybe holding a vintage pocket watch is a luxury for you and not for them which brings me back to one major point that something extremely valuable and close to you may not be of the same worth for them and yet it can be luxurious for you because it provides you with a lot of comfort and confidence when you carry it.

Luxury can never have the same meaning for two or more different groups of people who are differentiated on the basis of their ages, a classic example of it could be the contrast between the choices and preferences of the millennial and Generation X. According to Bain and company luxury industry has entered the “new normal”, keeping the statistics and “millennial behaviour” in mind, these numbers confirm that 73% of the revenue of the luxury industry came from the millennial back in 2016. It is perfectly said that the millennial are the next ruler of the luxury market. They are more demanding, selective and discerning than their parents or grandparents. Being the future generation they are very motive driven. Now the question is where luxury brands feature in between all of these.

Source : Bain & Company

In today’s time many people want to buy and invest their money and time, only in products which stand out with a cause and aim to provide the best service among others. Brands such as The Body Shop and Lush have created a market for themselves for being cruelty free. ‘Cruelty-free’ label means that a company or brand has banned all tests on animals for their ingredients – including in their supply chain, formulas, and finished products.

Also referring to the second tier of attributes, the millennial have a high propensity to  spend therefore to satisfy their want to look good and fashionable, they end up creating revenues for the luxury industry which more or less Is not how the Generation x defined luxury. Catering to simpler and less complex lifestyle, their idea of luxury has been substantially inclined towards enhancing the ways of primitive living instead of infusing or experimenting with new things. A 1974 luxury dazzling red mustang is something which would interest the Generation X rather than a convertible mini cooper.

Source : wikipedia.org

Now that we have understood how to define luxury in one’s own sense let’s try to understand what differentiates a luxury brand from a normal brand. If I were to ask this question to a person who has very little knowledge about luxury, he or she would simply answer using these 3 words; expensive, extravagant and appealing. Whereas for the same question, a luxury enthusiast would most likely have an answer that would state terms like worthy, comforting and valuable.

Luxury is all about perception.

We often think that luxury is something over and above a need and often miss out a really important point that luxury and need go hand in hand.

Let us use the example of a luxury watch brand to understand the definition of luxury.

Vacheron Constantin: 

heard of this brand before? Let’s know more about it! Vacheron Constantin is a Swiss manufacturer of luxury watches and is also among the world’s most expensive watches. Most people would likely be not open to the idea of breaking their banks for simply buying a watch. However that is not the case with many luxury watch buyers who spend a fortune to own a Vacheron Constantin.

Source : vacheron-constantin.com

What is so special about a Vacheron Constantin watch? Ultimately all watches simply show time then why pay through your nose for this one? The answer to this question is in a way a strong validation of the statement that ‘Luxury is all about perception’.

Meanwhile the following paragraph below will help understand one of the unique features of Vacheron Constantin that deems it to be a ‘Luxury’ for many of its owners:

Do you know all watches have something called as watch Deviation rate which tells us how accurate the time of your watch is? On an average +/- 4/6 seconds per day is the deviation rate of any normal watch, given that it is kept in a good condition. We know that accuracy of time is the primary function of any watch and it should ensure that it deviates as less as possible. If we take a normal watch into consideration we will see that on an average a normal watch deviates about 36.5 minutes every year however Vacheron Constantin claims to have a deviation rate of just about +/- 2 sec every day. This very factor is enough to make it a luxury watch because of the feeling of rarity, exclusivity and superiority it provides to its owners. In a sense it is notional because the difference of such a miniscule fraction of a second is NOT going to make any difference in anyone’s life unless one is in the rocket launching business!! However this example clearly demonstrates that luxury is in a way a feeling, an emotion that both an owner and possibly an observer undergo after experiencing an object of ‘luxury’.

Basically the idea that I would like to share is that luxury can never be developed based on physical attributes only without having the basic foundation of a ‘need’. Since there is a need for accuracy and by creating something as much accurate as possible, a brand like Vacheron Constantin metamorphoses into the realms of luxury.  

“Luxury is in each detail”, the quote by the Hubert Givenchy surely hits the nail on the head when it comes to defining luxury.

Moving to the second tier; a factor like a brand being super expensive provides many owners a lot of comfort and confidence whenever they wear it. Such buyers have an automatic assumption that an ‘expensive’ brand is a ‘luxury’ brand. Since not many people can afford to buy it, the owners enjoy the feeling of ‘exclusivity & luxury’ by default. For someone who is a perfectionist, brand like this is a luxury brand because of its super accuracy and while for some wearing a Vacheron Constantin watch is in a way of letting the world know that they are perfectionists and the obvious proof is that they wear an accurate watch like Vacheron Constantin!!

Essentially they are all driven by factors like quality, price, exclusivity, perfection and the attention to details. Basically there is a perception, a definition of luxury that each individual harbours as per his or her intellect and terms like ‘attention to details’ & perfectionism come the closest to define the essence of luxury.