Redefining Prestige: Emerging Paradigms In Sustainable Luxury
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53555/jaes.v21i4.89Keywords:
Sustainable luxury; Stewardship-based prestige; Traceability & digital product passports; Longevity-by-design & aftercare; ESG governance & due diligence.Abstract
Luxury prestige has long been based on open scarcity and swift novelty. Climbing environmental limits, social examination, and electronic openness now compel brands to reimagine status on verifiable stewardship instead of conspicuous spending. To consolidate scattered scholarship and practice and suggest a testable model, sustainable prestige, that synthesizes environmental integrity, social equity, cultural heritage, and longevity-by-design. Narrative-analytic review of peer-reviewed literature, documented industry practices, and regulatory trends in fashion, leather, watches and jewellery, beauty, hospitality, and luxury mobility. Evidence is structured within cradle-to-care boundaries and evaluated using product-level metrics. Quality grades and uncertainty intervals are presented for estimates. Demand switches from logo legibility to "conspicuous evidence" with willingness-to-pay bolstered by provenance verification, access to aftercare, and resale liquidity. Supply capabilities are focused on responsible sourcing, clean chemistry, materials innovation, modular craft, decarbonized manufacturing, and distributed networks for repair. Governance, due diligence, assurance, and digital product passports turn intent into auditable evidence. This study conducts a structured narrative review of peer-reviewed literature, industry reports with transparent methodologies, and regulatory developments across multiple luxury sectors. It proposes a conceptual model of sustainable prestige integrating environmental integrity, social equity, cultural heritage, and longevity-by-design. Findings indicate a gradual shift in prestige signaling from conspicuous consumption toward verifiable stewardship, enabled by traceability, governance, and aftercare ecosystems. The paper contributes a testable framework and measurement agenda for future empirical research on sustainable luxury.
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