Luxury fashion and hedonic consumption among black African women in the UK

Although consumption is a universal phenomenon, it is characterised with considerable degree of diversity in relation to various factors such as culture, age, gender, ethnicity, and many others. Accordingly, more often than not, these factors underpin consumers’ reactions to different market offerings including luxury products. While a plethora of scholarship effort are evident in the extant literature in regards luxury consumption, there is dearth of studies around how this is linked hedonism and ethnic consumers. Hence, this paper fills a palpable gap in the literature by exploring the UK Black African women’s taste for luxury fashion consumption. The study is interpretive in nature with the use of twenty in-depth interviews conducted with these women through the use of snowballing and purposive sampling methods. The study shows that the respondents’ motivation for luxury consumption is driven by success and evolutionary motives, belongingness, societal pressures, cultural connection, anthropomorphism, and consumer brand relationship and hedonism. Apart from the theoretical implication of the study which revolves around extending the discourse of taste in consumption and ethnic consumer behaviour, the paper will be greatly beneficial for marketing practitioners especially in the area of segmentation, targeting, and positioning vis-à-vis the marketing of luxury products.

Keywords: Luxury, Hedonic consumption, Black Africa, Women, UK