Research Report
Luxe Eternal: The customer edit
When luxury desirability meets the customer voice
5-minute read
January 13, 2026
In brief
- Despite its resilience, the luxury industry is reaching an inflection point: customer desire remains strong, yet loyalty is increasingly fragile.
- Across segments, customers are more vocal about what they seek—mastery, meaning, identity, belonging and relationships that feel genuinely personal.
- To win, brands must rethink the way they engage: listen more deeply, anticipate needs, surprise with relevance, and accompany customers over time.
Luxury enters 2026 facing a paradox. The sector has remained remarkably resilient despite tariffs, geopolitical tension and uneven global demand. Yet beneath that strength, loyalty feels more fragile and harder to earn. Our November 2024 Luxe Eternal report examined this tension from the brand perspective and showed how a small group of luxury leaders were able to elevate both operational excellence and desirability, ultimately creating a reinforcing flywheel.
In this year’s edition, Luxe Eternal: The customer edit, we shift to the customer, drawing on insights from 3,435 luxury customers across 13 countries to understand how they define luxury, what truly resonates and why some brands remain enduring favorites.
Customers converge on the essence of luxury, with many nuances
When customers describe luxury, three ideas rise to the top: quality, exclusivity and elegance. Yet this apparent consensus masks a more complex reality. There is no single luxury customer, only a mosaic of identities whose expectations diverge sharply.
One part of the market looks young, global in mindset and digitally fluent. Their sense of luxury is shaped by aesthetics, community signals and the pace of culture. Another group, often similar in age, blends digital ease with a sharper focus on values and purpose. A third group, older and more established, reads luxury through heritage, provenance and trust in institutions and master craftsmanship.
Each group prioritizes different drivers of desirability, making the task of leading a global maison more complex—and more demanding—than ever.
A growing resonance gap despite strong desirability
Across these three distinct profiles, customers still understand—and clearly articulate—what makes luxury appealing.
63%
of customers say luxury brands are evolving in line with changing lifestyles and expectations
60%
say brand storytelling emotionally engages them
65%
believe luxury brands still influence culture and reflect today’s values
Yet this shared pull toward luxury sits alongside a growing sense that the connection feels weaker: 37% of customers say luxury brands increasingly struggle to sustain emotional resonance and a lasting bond with them. The loyalty contract between brands and customers is becoming fractured.
50%
feel brands are becoming profit-driven businesses rather than dream-makers
37%
see “value-for-money” declining
35%
judge brand expressions less distinctive and inspiring
So, what do luxury customers really value?
A combination of quality, elegance, emotion and identity. In this context, one question matters more than any other. How can luxury brands protect the fundamentals of quality, craftsmanship and exclusivity while building relationships that feel as intentional, personal and enduring as the products themselves?
A few leaders are already doing it by combining quality, emotion and identity. The result: more than 90% of luxury customers see their desires fulfilled by their favorite brand.
43%
say their favorite luxury brands “represent exceptional quality and craftsmanship”
38%
cite elegance and timeless sophistication as the key character traits of their favorite brands
36%
said they “make me feel special and unique”
Customers value what happens behind the scenes that enables a reliable, seamless and truly premium luxury experience.
Three imperatives for luxury brands to resonate with customers
01
Build a “behind-the-scenes” engine that turns operational excellence into resonance
Every part of the luxury engine matters: 69% percent of customers say speed and precision in delivery and logistics are important, and 76% percent say staff expertise and professionalism shape their engagement with a brand. To deliver on this, maisons need a robust architecture of services and technologies—reliable quality, timings and logistics; care, repair and renewal services that extend the emotional life of the object; and digital and data tools that give a nuanced, non-intrusive view of client preferences and key life moments—all in service of a brand that listens, responds and consistently follows through.
02
Orchestrate a relational continuum that creates belonging
Journeys need a narrative arc, not a string of isolated touch points. The reason: 62% of customers expect online shopping to be as personalized and engaging as an in-store experience, while another 61% expect brands to stay connected even after purchase. For 59%, belonging to an exclusive circle or community is important. That is why brands must design clear “before, during and after” moments that translate the house codes into lived experiences. Success metrics also need to evolve. Conversion remains important, but tracking continuity will become imperative too. Think repeat visits, reactivation moments, participation in communities and the depth of engagement over time.
03
Elevate the relational artisan as a new figure of leadership
As more customers see brands as less distinct, less credible and more profit-driven, houses are redefining governance. The role of relational artisan is the client-facing extension of this shift: an interpreter of meaning and a guardian of resonance and desirability for the customer. The relational artisan embodies this shift at the closest point to the client. This relational artisan surfaces weak signals, emerging behaviors and the tensions or misunderstandings that threaten the bond, becoming a strategic actor of desirability by feeding the brand with the lived reality of its clients. But for this role to fulfill its potential, the organization must equip it properly: training in listening, culture and the art of conversation; protected time for genuine attention; and simple, reliable tools rather than unreadable dashboards.
The path forward
Luxury is resilient, but that resilience now depends more than ever on the right territories, the right audiences and the right experiences. The next era of luxury is not merely the ability to withstand crises; it is the capacity to build relationships so strong and so authentic that, even in the midst of the storm, your clients choose to remain by your side. The brands that will win are those that embrace this shift with clarity, courage and savoir-faire—those that treat relationships not as a by-product of luxury, but as its ultimate expression.