IPOL Conference 2023

Authors are invited to contribute their research topics and participate in Luxury Endangered at the IPOL Conference 2023. Please explore our themes and strands below. Authors are requested to familiarise themselves with the selection, notification, submission and style requirements below before submitting an abstract.

What makes an object a luxury product?
We believe that the work of an artisan or craftsperson is essential to the creation of luxury. Luxury by definition cannot be produced in an industrial process, it must take into account the expertise and knowledge of the maker. Many large scale luxury brands have designers who create an item, whether it is a garment, architectural fixture or interior product. Once these items are designed they are made not by artisans but often by factory workers each responsible for a different aspect of the manufacture. 

What features exemplify and extraordinary experience? 
Within the world of experiential luxury in flagship stores, restaurants, hotels, in the air, on the road on the sea the standards of service are continually enhanced. What does this mean to the luxury consumer in the real world, and in relation to defying the parameters of a luxury experience?

Luxury endangered will question the notion of luxury as it is currently constituted within a globalised consumer market where luxury brand narratives dominate. Within this configuration the specific skills of a craftsperson are commodified as are the services.

What informs our decision making around criteria used to classify luxury goods and services? Working in collaboration we will expand our understanding to articulate parameters that constitute luxury. These conversations will be engaging, challenging and undoubtably contentious. Our interest is to bring about change through these conversation.

Themes and Strands

Is Luxury Endangered? Is the world of fashion subsuming luxury? Does luxury matter anymore? This conference intends to expand the parameters of the debate around the concepts of luxury to provide a refreshing context to construe the familiar debates surrounding the subject. Indicative themes for the conference are:                                                             

Luxury Endangered – interpret it as you may

Luxury, does it matter?

Craftsmanship – The hand of the maker

Technology – Tools of the trade: data, artificial intelligence, machine learning

The Retail Environment – Shopping, space, virtual reality and the consumer

Contemporary Notions of Luxury – the changing luxury spectrum

Social Responsibility, Eco-design and the Circular Economy –  Waste, eco-thinking and luxury contradictions

The Supply Chain and Big Data – Exclusivity and mass production, the luxury Conundrum

Industry Perspectives – The Future of Luxury – is there a future?

The presentation format for those selected to present will be a themed panel discussion based on the themes and strands listed above.

We find that panels discussions are a more dynamic and interactive vehicle for the dissemination of research and new ideas and hence we have adopted this model instead of utilizing a traditional academic paper presentation format.

The 2023 IPOL conference in collaboration with FiP – Fashion in Process, research laboratory at Design Department – Politecnico di Milano / co-chaired by Associate Professor, Dr Chiara Colombi.