Gone are the days when a luxury logo alone could justify an eye-watering price tag. Today, consumers aren’t just buying products, they’re buying into stories, sometimes more carefully crafted than the products themselves. From a brand strategy perspective, this makes sense: Bain & Co. in 2023 revealed that Gen Z and Millennials make up over 50% of global luxury spending. Crucially, their buying habits show a shift away from symbolic consumption, towards more value-driven consumer behaviour. Thus, storytelling of brand heritage functions as not only an indispensable marketing strategy, but one of value creation. This article looks into just how ‘real’ these stories are. Using Dior as a case study, I explore how heritage in luxury can be less about factual history and more about creating a compelling narrative that resonates with consumers.
For houses like Dior, with such rich history, it’s not just about retelling the past, they must reshape and curate it. Brands must mould their legacy into a narrative that speaks to global, often younger, consumers. Of course, that isn’t to say that Dior’s origin story isn’t legendary. In 1947, Christian Dior unveiled the ‘New Look’, featuring rounded shoulder, a cinched waist and full skirts. This collection put ultra-femininity in the spotlight and reestablished Paris as a centre of luxury fashion. This story continues to live on through Dior’s iconic ‘bar jacket’. This piece has stood the test of time, reappearing on runways, exhibitions and retrospectives. Crucially, it has fabricating a visual sense of continuity that is, in reality, an illusion.
After all, Dior’s aesthetic through the decades, from 1947 until now, has been anything but consistent. From Marc Bohan’s refined sophistication to John Galliano’s unapologetic maximalism, the essence of Christian Dior has shifted. Therefore, the thread of consistency running through time wasn’t a fixed style, it was the story being told. Made clear under Bernard Arnault’s leadership, when Dior overhauled both its creative team andidentity. They moved away from the scattered licensing deals, where licensed manufacturers could design, produce and sell under the Dior name. Instead, Arnault introduced tightly controlled boutiques and a singular Dior ‘voice’. These boutiques weren’t just shops in the traditional sense; marble-clad and modern, they resembled a temple, in which customers experienced the brand as much as purchasing. Alongside this shift in strategy Dior’s sales increased from €102 million in 1992 to almost €1.9 billion in 2016. Their products including perfume, bags and ready-to-wear were all infused with the touch of Parisian elegance, despite the tenuous connection to couture being more illusion than fact.
It is the creation of a brand fantasy that is exactly the point. Dior’s modern customers are international, with many purchasing in Asia-Pacific markets in which the brand has flourished in recent years. As business historians Donzé and Wubs point out, these customers aren’t buying into tangible facts, they’re purchasing a feeling, which for Dior is elegance, bold femininity and avant-garde. This brand fantasy, regardless of being born in 1947 or retouched over the years, still sells.
With this in mind, does this make Dior’s heritage inauthentic? Absolutely not. In luxury, perception is everything. As Kapferer and Bastien say, ‘Luxury is not about tradition, it is about perpetually reinventing tradition to create desire’. With Gen Z and Millennials making up the majority of luxury spending, and placing a greater emphasis on storytelling, identity and cultural relevance, it’s clear that luxury brands must continue to shift from product-centric to narrative-centric branding. Therefore, Dior aren’t inauthentic, but a role model to other brands. Showing a curated heritage that customers want to believe in, regardless of strict alignment with archives. In doing so, Dior has transformed from a couture maison into a global luxury powerhouse, turning customer desire into lasting devotion.
By Skye Lockhart
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