Dissertation
Building an African Luxury Brand: The Case of Elie Kuame Couture
Fecha
2022-08-15Autor
Dabard, Albert François Béatrice Marie-Joseph
Institución
Resumen
Despite the undisputed importance of luxury as an industry in many economies and societies, the African luxury industry has attracted few academics and little research, especially from the business perspective. Based on Kapferer and Bastien’ assertion that “there is no luxury without brands”, this thesis suggests to start bridging this paradoxical gap in the literature by exploring how African luxury fashion brands are being built. To this end, we compare the attributes and management principles of typical Western luxury brands extracted from The Luxury Strategy by Kapferer and Bastien (2012) with those of a recently established Ivorian luxury fashion brand: Elie Kuame Couture. Thanks to original, qualitative research, we show that the Ivorian brand shares many building blocks with its Western counterparts, but not all of them. While we thus cannot really conclude on whether or not Elie Kuame Couture is a “true” luxury brand, we insist that the Ivorian house develops its own specificities and hence challenges our list of qualifying criteria, as well as the Western understanding of luxury. Overall, this thesis hopes to contribute to breaking the perception that “Africa” is antithetical to “luxury”, to raising awareness about the continent’s multiple creative talents, and to supporting the development of a strong African luxury industry. Apesar da indiscutível importância do luxo como indústria em muitas economias e sociedades, a indústria do luxo africana atraiu poucos acadêmicos e pouca pesquisa, especialmente do ponto de vista empresarial. Com base na afirmação de Kapferer e Bastien de que "não há luxo sem marcas", esta tese sugere começar a preencher esta lacuna paradoxal na literatura explorando como as marcas de moda de luxo africanas estão sendo construídas. Para este fim, comparamos os atributos e princípios de gestão de marcas de luxo típicas ocidentais extraídos da The Luxury Strategy de Kapferer e Bastien (2012) com os de uma marca de moda de luxo da Costa do Marfim recentemente estabelecida: Elie Kuame Couture. Graças a pesquisas originais e qualitativas, mostramos que a marca marfinense compartilha muitos blocos de construção com suas homólogas ocidentais, mas não todos eles. Embora não possamos realmente concluir se a Elie Kuame Couture é ou não uma marca "verdadeira" de luxo, insistimos que a casa da Costa do Marfim desenvolve suas próprias especificidades e, portanto, desafia nossa lista de critérios de qualificação, bem como a compreensão ocidental do luxo. Em geral, esta tese espera contribuir para quebrar a percepção de que "África" é antitética ao "luxo", para aumentar a consciência sobre os múltiplos talentos criativos do continente e para apoiar o desenvolvimento de uma forte indústria de luxo africana.
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