Published as part of the Oxford Handbook series, this volume provides a broad overview of the business of luxury. It brings together the thoughts of three editors and a further thirty-two contributors.
The editors, in their introductory chapter, establish the parameters of the work. From the perspective of academic research, they highlight the contributions of management, history, and critical luxury studies to our current understanding of luxury business. They identify contemporary issues, including the globalization of markets, luxury firms’ current dependency on China, income inequalities, the democratization of luxury, the authenticity question, tensions in the production process, luxury in the context of economic sustainability, and the challenge to European commercial dominance that will most likely intensify in coming decades. This introduction clearly outlines the main themes and contributions of the book.
The first of the book's six parts is concerned with the establishment of conceptual foundations. Chapters explore ideas surrounding the moralization and demoralization of luxury during the early modern period, critical theory and its role in interpreting the contemporary customer experience of luxury, the evolution of the luxury industry, the financing of luxury business, and the role of entrepreneurs in challenging accepted practices. This part of the book provides a historically framed context for the issues discussed in later sections. The role of David Hume in the debate on the morality of luxury consumption, the periodization of the growth and development of the luxury industry from the mid-eighteenth to the twenty-first century, how financing supported the evolution of luxury firms, and the role of creative destruction are all themes that provide thoughtful and thought-provoking insights.
Having provided context, the book's next two parts discuss luxury production and marketing. These sections contain nine chapters on a wide variety of subjects, providing a valuable management perspective and depth to the book. Other themes are not forgotten, though. A historical dimension is sustained, albeit within the confines of the subjects addressed. Topics such as supply chain management, innovation, licensing, and branding, with its numerous dimensions, address the complexity of the luxury industry. A recurring question, often explicit and sometimes implicit, appears in the book: What is luxury? It is a test of a reader's world view. Is luxury defined by the authentic craftsmanship of production or by what the consumer considers it to be?
Distribution and markets are the focus of Parts 4 and 5 of the book: luxury in the marketplace. Part 4 focuses on the retail sector—department stores, single-brand flagship stores, and airport luxury retailing—and includes a valuable chapter on country-of-origin labeling. Part 5 considers the global markets in which such luxury retailers have operated or continue to operate. Here the geographical focus is on the markets of the United States and western Europe, from which many of the luxury firms considered in the book originate, as well as the large host markets of Japan, China, and India.
The final part of the book returns to some of the wider themes explored in Part 1. Concerned with sustainability, inequality, and morality, Part 6 explores the re-moralization of luxury. Here the reader encounters consideration of economic inequality from a critical studies perspective, counterfeiting, corruption, tourism, environmentalism, and the role of the digital economy in the enticing prospect—but uncertain attainment—of a more sustainable future. The chapter on luxury tourism and its relationship to the environment adroitly shows how history can contribute to an understanding of contemporary concerns through an exploration of specific past practices and through the broader historical framing of those activities. While Part 1 of the book is preceded by an introductory chapter from the editors, Part 6 is not followed by a concluding chapter. Some concluding thoughts might have been helpful, not least thoughts on the future of the industry and research on the business of luxury.
Does the book speak to the business historian? The reader looking for historical research on luxury businesses could be forgiven for asking, could we have some more, please? However, the editors have a delicate balance to maintain here. This is a book on luxury business and not one on the history of luxury business. Business history is not excluded from the book, and indeed it is difficult to see how it could be, given the subject matter. However, given the book's breadth and the way it accommodates different academic streams of thought, it is inevitable that history shares the past with such concepts as heritage, authenticity, and brand mythologizing. In this coexistence, the book implicitly raises questions regarding the role of history in the discussion of current management activity, the availability of a business history literature to support such a role, and ultimately the archival sources that support the generation of such a literature.
While the works of business historians are cited in the book, and the managerial chapters frequently embed a history section, the book also illustrates that there is an opportunity for further business history research in this area. Such a research agenda would not only serve to provide a more nuanced understanding of luxury businesses over time; it would also have the benefit of contextualizing the contemporary commercial history of luxury firms within a longer time frame. In turn, this would support a historical understanding of management practices that may have deeper and more complex roots than is currently articulated in the management literature.
