If you’ve been spending any time on social media, you may have noticed “a little thing” happening, as they say on Instagram. Based on anecdotal evidence (read: Reel and TikTok), it seems everyone below 35 now flies business class and holidays at swanky beach villas with their own private pools. Luxury, it appears, has become more accessible. It’s developed into more about fitting in than standing out from the crowd.
Certainly, luxury means different things to different people. “At its most basic level, luxury is anything that’s inaccessible and extraordinary, and unnecessary,” said Dr Florian Girardin, an associate professor at Swiss hospitality university EHL where he teaches hospitality luxury brand management.
While I understand the concept of brand management, I tell Dr Girardin, how exactly do you teach luxury, a concept so intangible and which differs based on our life experiences and individual standards and expectations?
“I start with defining what is and isn’t luxury,” he answered during our interview in an EHL classroom that looks out to a scenic mountain range in Lausanne, Switzerland. “Luxury is an evolving concept. It varies from culture to culture. So, I try to base it on the most recent research and then we study the different dimensions of luxury which helps distinguish real luxury brands from non-luxury brands. It’s not a black-and-white concept. It’s a continuum.”
STUDYING LUXURY IN THE LAP OF LUXURY
As far as universities go, EHL is its own luxury experience. Founded in 1893, it is the world’s first and oldest hospitality management school with its flagship campus in Lausanne (it has two other campuses in Passugg, Switzerland and Singapore). The sprawling Lausanne campus feels more like swish airport than tertiary institution, with up to 4,000 impeccably dressed students from 126 nationalities traversing the 80,000-sq-m campus on which there is a vegan restaurant, food court, tennis courts, 25-metre swimming pool, a Montreux Jazz Cafe, and even a Michelin-star restaurant.
