Indian Consumers’ Assessment of ‘Luxuriousness’: A Comparison of Indian and Western Luxury Brands

Abstract

The concept of luxury is relative in nature and the perceived luxuriousness of a brand is influenced by a number of subjectivities. In the Indian context, the history of colonization and the dominance of Western cultures for the past many decades have created a preference for luxury brands of Western origin, which is reflected in the perceptions of luxuriousness of the brand. However, the ‘Westernization’ of the Indian society is intertwined with a milieu of traditions and cultures which are strongly embedded in ‘Indian-ness’, where, consumptions linked to the Indian cultural traditions and celebrations create a distinction between products that have their origins in Indian culture versus those that stemmed from the Western world. This study compares the perceived luxuriousness of Western brands (LV and Hermes) to Indian luxury brands (Sabyasachi and AND) and examines the effect of the cultural origins of a product in the context women’s fashion, where a saree is seen as a product that originates from Indian culture, vis-à-vis evening dresses, which are perceived as a primarily Western concept. The results of the study reveal that though the perceived luxuriousness of Western brands is higher than those of Indian origin, there is a clear moderating effect of the cultural origin of the product. Western brands attempting to occupy the luxury space in products which have their cultural origins in India (example Hermes marketing sarees) are perceived as being less luxurious than Indian brands present in the same product category (Sabyasachi sarees). The reverse was also found to be true, where Indian luxury brands attempting to create a space for themselves in products which are considered to be of Western origins were perceived to be less luxurious than brands their Western counterparts.