Luxury Fashion and Media Communication: Between the Material and Immaterial

Using image and film advertisements, interviews, social media and public and private archives, Luxury Fashion and Media Communication offers an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing the value of the luxury object. Regular reports on consumption in media and frequent advertising on social media have allowed people all over the world to share in the issues and development of luxury; but how is it communicated, and how has it affected the consumer?

An international range of scholars explore the material and immaterial value and meaning of luxury, how it is materialized and how it is communicated between the luxury industry and the consumer. Investigating French, Italian and Spanish luxury brands and their communication strategies on the global market, and including two chapters focusing specifically on the Chinese and American markets, they examine the ambiguity of the luxury commodity. This volume shows particularly the conflicting narratives between the idea of exclusivity and human skills and their mass marketing.

In exploring theoretical perspectives alongside the practicalities of how luxury is communicated, Luxury Fashion and Media Communication reveals the value of the luxury object and the consumer’s behaviour in relation to that value. It offers an innovative and important intervention in the inter-related fields of luxury fashion, media and communication, and key reading for scholars, students and practitioners wishing to explore the material and immaterial value of luxury.

Paula von Wachenfeldt is Associate Professor and Director of Studies for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden.

Magdalena Petersson McIntyre is Associate Professor and Researcher at the Centre for Consumer Research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.