The Effect of Functional, Symbolic and Experiential Framings on Attitudes Towards Luxury Fashion Products: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate how different value framings, namely functional, symbolic and experiential ones, influence Italian customers’ attitudes within the fashion luxury category.Moreover, the role of the personal trait of vanity has been analyzed as moderator in the previous relationship. Chapter 1 is an introductive one: several statistics about the Italian luxury market and some definitions of the term “luxury” will be provided. Chapter 2 contains the theoretical background together with the conceptual model of the research. The relevant literature on which my work is based will be presented; some evidence about the reasons behind the hypotheses will be discussed too. Chapter 3 explains how I have built the pre-test and the main test. All the information about how I have selected the stimuli and the scales of measurement, along with the research design and methods, is included. Chapter 4 is focused on the analysis and the presentation of the results. The statistic tools and methods I have used will be touched in detail. Chapter 5 interprets the results and summarize them. Here, I have divided the discussion in several areas of interest. Chapter 6, instead, presents the implications of my research, both from a theoretical and a strategic point of view. Chapter 7 lists some limitations of my work and directions for the future researches in the same sector. Chapter 8, finally, contains a small paragraph where I have explained what I wanted to achieve with my research.