When Luxury Hides Itself: Unveiling the Meaning Arab Women Attach to Luxury

Studying luxury consumption for Arab women is significant in light of economic and political changes that have stimulated consumerism and interest in Western modernism. It is interesting to explore the multiplicity of value perceptions and fragmentation, or coherence, of rationales for the deliberate choice of Arab females to remain covered on the outside but have a distinctiveness ‘under the veil’ through luxury fashion consumption. This paper explores how Middle Eastern women make sense of consuming luxury, with the objectives of better understanding consumer motivations and value perceptions for this niche but lucrative market segment. A qualitative research approach through in-depth interviews is employed in this phase of the study. Findings indicate that the most prominent perceptions of luxury for this group are superfluousness, elitism and Luxury being only reserved for the educated. Results highlight interpersonal motives as relatively prominent for the sample. The research advances how the elitist Arab females are not homogeneous among themselves or the bigger Arab community. These females have their internal religious and cultural beliefs in living under the veil, yet express themselves with differentiated conspicuousness through luxury fashion consumption. Marketers can hence profile this group into distinct sub-segments/clusters and target them with tailored marketing programmes.