Luxury fashion flagship hotels and cultural opportunism: The cases of Hotel Missoni Edinburgh and Maison Moschino

This article gives an insight into the phenomenon of brand extension into the hospitality business by Italian luxury fashion labels and conceptualizes it in terms of luxury fashion flagship hotels. Examining the cases of Hotel Missoni Edinburgh and Maison Moschino this article investigates the different ways in which they refer to Italy and its culture. It is argued that within Hotel Missoni Edinburgh and Maison Moschino there are strategies of cultural opportunism at play that are aimed at deploying their Italianicity as a means to strengthen their association with their parent brands and increase their prestige, but also to augment their offerings, maximizing the brand extension potential of those labels. Through a semiotic analysis, it is contended that Hotel Missoni Edinburgh and Maison Moschino capitalize not only on parent brands Missoni and Moschino but also on the positive connotations associated with Italy and its lifestyle, so that they can convey meanings that concern a broader sociocultural context and that revolve around issues of national identity. The hotels portray versions of Italianicity based on different traits but both contribute to the creation of a myth of Italy that involves the commodification of the Italian national identity and promotes its symbolic consumption.