To show-off wealth? To be ostentatious or not?
Budget consciousness may affect some purchasing patterns but the real challenge for luxury today lies more than ever in the essence of the product/service/experience you are proposing as value. Value never gets downgraded if it remains true to its essence.
Fashion designers are not the only luxury vendors who believe discounting is dangerous. "I am very against cutting prices," said panelist Javier Vivas, general manager of The Box, a burlesque club and dinner theater on New York's Lower East Side, where customers regularly pay more than $1,000 per table for bottle service. The Box is owned by Simon Hammerstein and partially run by celebrities, including Jude Law and Rachel Weisz. "Nobody in the city's nightclub business has dropped prices because, if you do, they will smell weakness. You have to target the [customers] who have money [to] keep the integrity of the product."
As the shift from extravagance is a reality, price cutting retailers are making clients doubt about the value of certain 'articles'. In order to best avoid downward spiral of confidence, it's high time brand owners, exclusive destinations, craftsmanship in general, come to terms with the issue of value and worth of the experiences and products offering to existing clients. Rethinking luxury inevitably means rethinking our customer first and making necessary adaptations. There was an interesting debate about luxury surviving the economy covering wide subject area - if you are interested follow the link:
Read on debate from the Penn Fashion Week hosted by @Wharton