Does fashionization impede luxury brands’ CSR image?
Résumé
To sustain their growth worldwide, luxury brands are increasingly adopting the codes offast fashion. They continually introduce new designs that move quickly from the catwalk to stores tostay on-trend, resulting in short and constantly renewed collections. But does this fashionizationimpede luxury brands’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) image? This article investigates thisquestion building on the ephemerality–scarcity dual-route model. Findings from a first experimentinvolving a fictitious luxury brand show that fashionization increases both perceptions of ephemerality(negative route) and scarcity (positive route), with opposing resulting eects on the brand’s CSRimage. Extending these results to a real-life luxury setting, findings from a second experiment showthat the influence of fashionization on the brand’s CSR image is only mediated by the positive scarcityroute. This study provides a number of noteworthy theoretical insights and relevant managerialimplications for luxury managers involved in CSR communication.