Perception of Luxury:: Idiosyncratic Russian Consumer Culture and Identity

Abstract

Russia becomes the prime mover of the luxury world market. Whereas most of the studies on luxury consumption focus on the context of Western countries, studies of the topic in Eastern European transition countries are still rare. This paper increases understanding as to the factors that explain luxury consumption of Russian consumers. As in transition countries, the identity of consumers is generally accepted to be in a state of flux, the research question refers to the extent Russian identity influences consumption of luxury. This paper applies a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology approach and reveals that Russian luxury consumption differs from that of Western societies. Positive relationships between identity, status consumption, perceived quality, symbolic/status consumption and uniqueness were found and identity turned out to have a significant bearing on consumption of luxury goods in