The Allure of the Luxury Fashion Brand Publication: consuming the fashion product as media

Kealy-Morris, Elizabeth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2843-1916 (2023) The Allure of the Luxury Fashion Brand Publication: consuming the fashion product as media. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Fashion Marketing. Springer Series in Fashion Business . Palgrave (Springer Nature), Cham. (In Press)

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Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic has brought great challenges to the fashion sector from supply-chain collapse to the shuttering of bricks-and-mortar retail. Research undertaken for this chapter has brought to light that brands are seeking to reach target customers to engage in a more meaningful and sustained conversation. Customers, in turn, are seeking out brands which offer immersive experiences which authentically match their mission statements (Business of Fashion 2020; Mondalek 2021). This chapter will consider the rise, purpose, and intent of the luxury brand publication through the analysis of current trends in the fashion magazine and fanzine market via contemporary luxury fashion campaign practices. A qualitative visual analysis of two case studies will be carried out: Dior Magazine (Dior 2022) and Gucci Love e-zines (Gucci 2021; 2022) to argue that the fashion brand publication offers luxury fashion houses direct communication with their target consumers as communities and extends brands’ fashion offerings into storytelling media which enable them to be consumed beyond their materiality. Through analysis of the Gucci Love e-zines, a new genre of brand publication will be established: the ‘brandzine’. This chapter utilizes theory, methodologies, and qualitative data collection via theories of visual culture; communication theory; market analysis; and brand management theory. This is an up-to-date contemporary analysis of luxury fashion brand visual communication at a time of great change in the brand-customer relationship. The chapter will be of interest to luxury fashion brand managers, brand creatives, graphic designers in the wider creative industries, and fashion communication/promotion/marketing academics and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study.