The charm of meta-luxury
Meta-Luxury, a term that goes beyond all obvious and superficial considerations of luxury was coined. Meta-luxury brands do not have business results as their key driver, rather, they have an ambition for a place in history through unique achievement. Luxury is about showing, meta-luxury is about knowing. Luxury is about stretch and surface. Meta-luxury is always about focus and depth. Luxury is often merely about affording, meta-luxury is always first and foremost about understanding.
It is attracted by those brands that transcend the span of the individual lifetime, standing the test of time to epitomize a sense of accomplishment and eternity. Through the process of meta-luxury, the original, normative semblance of luxury is denied by a more forthright semiotic prestige.
The concept is both sustainable and realistic as people are becoming more conscious about quality and ethics. Meta-luxury challenges head-on what we mean by “luxury” as a diluted convention and opens up insights into brands based on a business model of sustainable excellence.
Brunello Cucinelli is a beautiful example of a brand that is building and sustaining a community, investing in the unique knowledge and skills behind his creations—and hitting double-digit growth in the process.
Louis Vuitton is an example of a brand that has abandoned the concept of meta-luxury on some level as there is little that is rarefied about it, with bags sewn largely by machine and multiple factories providing a steady stream of products to an insatiable marketplace. The reason behind these changes could be the aim of becoming more commercial and reach more people.
2024.2.15