An Empirical Investigation of the Perceived Value of Luxury Fashion Brand Consumption in the UAE and the UK

Marketing has long been interested in the impact of luxury fashion consumption and why it is that consumers are prepared to pay premium prices for designer brands. In this thesis the suggestion is made that our understanding of consumers’ perceptions of the value that lay in such products is limited by the fact that the broader cultural context in which luxury fashion consumption takes place has not been fully explored and that the cross-cultural complexities of this have been under-estimated. The thesis seeks to compare luxury fashion consumption in the United Arab Emirates with that in the United Kingdom as a means of developing a more nuanced understanding of luxury fashion consumption. By exploring seven key concepts: materialism, psychological ownership, self-enhancement, self-identity, cultural background, self-construal and self-consciousness, a theoretically-informed conception of the key influences on a consumers’ perception of value towards luxury fashion brand consumption is presented and, on this basis, a five factor model is offered. The thesis goes on to present cross-cultural data gleaned from a Luxury fashion questionnaire with consumers recruited online, as well as one-to-one interviews with luxury fashion brand consumers, retail sales associates and a social media influencer. The contention is made that luxury fashion consumption is fundamentally a psychosocial process that is as much about the cultural context in which a luxury fashion consumer operates than it is about their individual choices. By way of conclusion recommendations are made as to how both the academic literature and marketing professionals might be best informed as regards to best practice around luxury fashion consumption