Luxury Marketing

(3 Credits)

The course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the fundamentals of luxury. When was the concept of luxury first articulated and what did it mean within its various manifestations? Who were the luxury consumers in pre-modern cultures and what were the events that catapulted luxury into the sociopolitcal discourse? How did modernity affect ancient processes associated with the production of luxury products? How did the products, consumer tastes, material exchanges, and producer strategies evolve through history? Students will acquire an understanding of the luxury segment of the market as it applies to a variety of industries; observation skills that will allow them to distinguish what constitutes luxury in a product; the necessary vocabulary to articulate the nuances that differentiate these products and the ability to do so with clarity and precision in terms of technique, design, and materials; and finally, the critical skills to identify potential new luxury products and how they relate to a variety of markets, including emerging markets.