Luxury and virtuality: the vertigo of control

Abstract

The communication of luxury brands had once counted on specific media (special shops, specific pages of magazines, its own advertising codes) distant from other more generic media vehicles, but nowadays such communication must define its new codes, in order to build its specificity in the new virtual media, starting with its presence on the internet, with the constraint of its exclusivity, i.e., to avoid banality and cultivate its exception. Not that we should invent new content, “the luxury is the luxury,” one could say, but obviously it is about the appropriation of this space in its particularity, so it can convey luxury without confusion. A paradox. The problem that follows this evidence is that of the preservation of a status. Facing such a need for reorganization, given the new constraints, how do the luxury brands operate to maintain their essence? According to what modalities? Our research, based on various luxury brand websites (fashion and accessories, jewelry, watchmaking), is to highlight the vertigo of controlling as the heart of the strategy of these brands.