ABSTRACT

Within the context of luxury consumption, we propose a novel theory of luxury consumer maturity that captures how consumers’ tastes can become more discriminating over time. In particular, we consider the way luxury consumers exhibit maturity (i.e. connoisseurship) as a proxy for Bourdieusian cultural capital. Consumer maturity manifests as a preference for inconspicuous luxury goods that contain less general signaling ability than conspicuous luxury goods but stronger signals for those within the consumer’s social hierarchy. We conceptually propose the mechanisms that facilitate consumer maturity development, including knowledge, saturation, and time. By moving away from Veblenian conspicuous consumption, we seek to offer a nuanced and revisionist conceptual framework that details the process by which luxury consumers mature, resulting in a preference for inconspicuous luxury products and rejection of mass luxury brands.

摘要

在奢侈品消费的背景下，我们提出了一种关于奢侈品消费者成熟度的新理论，该理论捕捉了消费者的品味如何随着时间的推移变得更加挑剔。特别是，我们将奢侈品消费者表现成熟度（即鉴赏力）的方式视为布尔迪厄文化资本的代表。消费者的成熟度表现为对不起眼的奢侈品的偏好，这些奢侈品的一般信号能力低于显眼的奢侈品，但对消费者社会等级中的人的信号更强。我们从概念上提出了促进消费者成熟度发展的机制，包括知识、饱和度和时间。通过摆脱 Veblenian 炫耀性消费，我们寻求提供一个细致入微的修正主义概念框架，详细说明奢侈品消费者成熟的过程，