Populence: Exploring Luxury for the Masses

The authors present a phenomenological investigation of luxury brand consumption patterns as revealed through female consumers' descriptions of their lived experiences with various brands and products. An integrative review of traditional luxury research demonstrates how the meaning of luxury has changed in the contemporary United States. Seventeen in-depth interviews provide insights to update this meaning. The authors offer several theoretical extensions and propose a new luxury paradigm that they refer to as "populence," defined as a category of new luxury goods and services with a wide target audience. An application of these proposed concepts to relevant research domains provides further insights.