Inclusivity in Exclusivity: an analysis of luxury fashion campaigns and consumer perception

Driven by exclusivity and elitism, luxury fashion brands should appropriately integrate racial inclusivity and balance this in their ad campaigns in order to appeal and relate to a wider array of audiences. The fashion industry is predominantly white and is characterized by nepotism, which is problematic in this day and age. To tackle the inherent racism within the industry, some brands feature models of African descent in their advertising campaigns, however, this can be seen by consumers as a symbolic attempt of representation instead of an authentic one. Therefore, this thesis answers the question of how luxury brands communicate racial inclusivity in their ad campaigns and how their consumers perceive it. By examining the various forms of communication utilized in luxury brands’ advertising campaigns, the thesis aimed to understand how renowned luxury maisons such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Versace, and Christian Dior convey the notion of racial inclusivity without losing the entire concept of exclusivity that has defined brands like these for decades. Guided by Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theory, this thesis additionally explores how consumers perceive the communication put forward by these brands in regards to racial inclusivity. Through a mixed methods analysis, including a multimodal discourse analysis of 50 photographs from luxury brands’ advertising campaigns, and a quantitative survey, the results brought to light three prevailing themes, namely equipoise of power, veiled prejudice, and racial incongruity, prevalent in the communication of luxury fashion brands regarding racial inclusivity. Consumer perception on the racial representation was influenced by both the explicit details of the campaigns, but also by their personal and cultural values and beliefs. A high exposure to events of racism within the past year and how consumers react upon encountering these events played a role on whether they perceived the racial representation in an ad campaign as appropriate. The study also found that consumers hold higher regard for certain luxury brands in terms of their approach to racial representation based on the composition of the ad campaigns presented, as visual elements such as lighting and color made a difference on their perceptions, even if the campaigns possessed similar quantities of models of color.