Günter Müller-Stewens

A luxury good must be rare and desirable. Ideally, it should be close to unobtainable. And yet, the luxury market grows faster than most others, suggesting an ever increasing accessibility to an ever growing populace. A luxury good must be extreme among the other offerings in its category. And yet, there is something inherently relative about luxury goods, driving the definition of luxury away from the offering itself and toward a consumer's situative perspective. Although a luxury good is meant to be uncompromisingly superfluous in terms of effort and materials invested beyond any standard of responsibility, luxury and responsible managerial and consumer behavior is becoming a more and more viable combination, creating eco-conscious fashion and hybrid high-performance sports cars.

Conventional business wisdom suggests low prices stimulate demand, business size increases competitiveness, and consumers shop for functional use. In luxury, however, these and many more conventions are turned upside down: demand can increase with price, a brand's diffusion acts negatively on its desirability, and consumers make extraordinary efforts to purchase products that usually do not exceed the functional performance of considerably less expensive and, thus, more reasonable alternatives. Luxury, thus, is a phenomenon that is quite real in today's world. Luxury companies have to work more or less within the same mechanisms as other companies, but they apply a set of considerably different parameters. We aim to give an overview of the phenomenon that is today's luxury business, taking snapshots of the market, the luxury organization, management challenges and the must-reads of research in luxury.