ABSTRACT
The first chapter focuses on defining luxury and its underlying dimensions in the watch sector, positioning the Swiss luxury watch industry in the global luxury watch industry. When people engage with luxury products, we may hear phrases like “this is pure luxury.” However, as meanings and perceptions of luxury differ widely, it is difficult to observe and distinguish what people really mean when describing an object as “luxurious.” Thus, defining or measuring luxury as a latent variable is challenging. This chapter positions the Swiss luxury watch sector as a mainstay of global luxury watchmaking and explores how industry experts perceive luxury. Via an exploratory factor analysis that builds on data from a pilot study on the Swiss Watch Industry, we identify two core factors that help delineate luxury understandings. Factor one shows a relation between six items (hedonism, status, high price, conspicuousness, symbolic value, and scarcity). In contrast, factor two relates to four luxury dimensions (excellent quality, aesthetics and beauty, innovation, and history and heritage). Overall, the analysis shows two distinct factors underlying the luxury understandings in the Swiss luxury watch sector. The expert ratings indicate the second factor to be more important than the first. Ultimately, we discuss broader theoretical implications in light of gestalt theory and how experts perceive luxury watches’ varying gestalts (i.e. manifestations, shapes, and configurations).
