Despite the orientation towards online retailing journey accelerated by the application of new-age technologies in the pandemic context, the role of the physical store still has a central role in luxury shopping in the digital omni-channel perspective. Digital technologies have increased their impact on consumers (Evanschitzky et al., 2020; Klaus & Zaichkowsky, 2020; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2020; Davenport et al, 2020; Huang and Rust, 2021a; Pantano et al, 2022). In today’s digital age, AI is one of the new-age technologies raising growing interest for their potential disruptive impact on marketing and retailing in different sectors (Forbes, 2022).

Digitalisation, increasing global competition, new relational approaches to communication and advertising by new generations of consumers (for example, the New Millennials) together with social issues such as sustainability and authenticity in branding definition, pose important challenges for companies operating in the luxury fashion industry. In facing them, these companies seem to re-elaborate meanings attributed to luxury rethinking their strategies and their interactive approaches to market. The specialized literature, from its part, shows that luxury is no longer only ostentation but it has evolved in something else; on the one hand luxury as a state of mind and mood, and on the other still a sort of heritage and authenticity. These two extremes tend increasingly to contaminate each other and to co-exist one in the other, albeit with different reciprocal influence. The aim of this paper is determine how this co-existence can occur. It involves two opposing aspects of luxury, that of owning and that of being. There are other facets of luxury that may occur between these extremes. Research has shown, in fact, that luxury is also experience, co-creation, sharing and even self-achievement. Rendering luxury status, but at the same time making it an instrument for individual evolution may determine an integration of its various faces paving the way for a re-conceptualization of fashion luxury in communication.

This article focuses on the factors affecting Millennials purchasing online or offline choices in luxury fashion. In particular, in relation to the rising literature in Millennials relation with luxury brands, it is focusing on the missing literature on the variables that are affecting their choices in the increasing debate related to their online brand relation and purchasing orientation.

It is certainly not possible to analyse the evolution of the global luxury consumers orientations for the new luxury Chinese brands without considering the essence and the impact of the “brandscape”. In the last decade, China has assisted to the surge of the “luxury lifestyle” for a multiplicity of consumer segments living in those coastal areas – and not only - filled with luxury and fashion brands, that invaded every city area from streets to airports from clinics to hotels where concept stores, luxury flagship stores, sponsorships for events and urban artefacts “add value to the symbolic production of an urban lived space” (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Luxury product brands are enriched by the synergy with the city brand and the diverse fashion and art city locations, activities and events. In the new luxury perspective that sees luxury in its experiential dimension and no longer only in desire of an exclusive object, the relation of luxury brands and city brand requires a specific focus, in particular in the new fast growing economies as China that sees the rise of the new experiential luxury lifestyle and new local luxury brands. In the fast growing luxury Chinese luxury market where new Chinese luxury brands are striving to acquire a brand identity and image first in the local market and then in the international one, city branding may be a conductive solutions for brand value and identity creation. Authentic luxury experiences in significant city contexts appear added value activities for luxury brands in particular for those with no consolidated heritage and identity as the new Chinese luxury brands. New retail formats such as pop-up stores, concept stores located in specific high value artistic or fashion related locations adds value (Bellaiche et al, 2012). For Chinese luxury brands with a very limited identity, a almost absent heritage and a ongoing value creation of the brand, in-store experience is increasingly important (Atsmon et al, 2012) and the shopping location certainly represent an important factor for the increasingly diverse and demanding luxury customers by being not only the instrument towards the desired subjects but also a value-adding experience on its own (Rintamaki et al, 2007, p. 628). The emergence of the Chinese luxury consumer did not mean the presence on a market where the consumers are gathered by the same tastes, desires and purchasing patterns. Reference to the global consumer culture and paradigm evidenced that consumers in diverse geographical contexts may have different and sometimes even conflicting opinions or shared desires and values expressed in similar behaviours or symbols towards a brand. Global brands sets the international standards and convey shared symbols (Holt, Quelch and Taylor 2004) and a myth of cosmopolitanism to which many consumers world-wide appreciate (Strizhacova, Coulter and Price 2008).Brands represent a form of culture and they relate to the way people live, think, eat and choose to wear as well, a form of seeing life and the world (Askegaard, Kjeldgaard and Arnould, 2009) . Luxury brands have become increasingly present in the Chinese consumer market and lifestyle and the role of purchasing luxury goods experiencing a luxury lifestyle has taken an unexpected importance and meaning in the Chinese social context. China has started to experience the consumer culture only after China's opening up to the market economy as a result of the economic reforms post-1979 that have given to "aspirational" consumers more freedom to develop a consumer culture partially away from political limitations but still permeated in the Chinese culture and its characteristics. Those reforms have also given rise to the private businesses and the birth of a consumer middle class, "the new rich", in China. The birth of the Chinese middle class has fuelled the emergence of a highly diversified consumer class with different purchasing attitudes (Latham, 2006) and a new way to express their taste, their motivation for purchasing (Gillette, 2000) and in particular an increasing brand awareness, mode of purchasing and conceptualisation of luxury (Rambourg, 2014; Rovai, 2016). Distinctive aspects of luxury consumer culture have started to emerge in the late years, evidencing new desires for Chinese luxury consumers with respect to luxury brands, accompanied by the entrance in the market of Chinese luxury brands aspiring the capitalise on the increasing "Chinese luxury desire" but limited by their lack of specific characteristics of authentic luxury brands - heritage, identity and prestige amongst others. As a result, this research focuses on the analysis of Chinese luxury brands presence in the local Chinese urban context; specifically, it focuses on how the Chinese urban fashion context can help to support the creation of a luxury brand value and also reinforce a luxury brand identity and image in a Chinese luxury consumer culture that does not possess a luxury heritage. An analysis of two luxury Chinese brands and a local luxury and fashion concept store has been initiated together with further evidence from the Shanghai urban context, its activities, events and cultural specifics together with the following a qualitative method and in particular Yin (1989) case study approach. A series of 15 interviews have been held in late 2016 in Shanghai with the two Chinese luxury brands creative designers, owners and staff during one month together with observation and consulting of documents. Literature review has focused on the role of individual brands that, being somehow associated with the city become a collective brand (Pasquinelli, 2014), framing "the complex network of associations, linking products, spaces, organizations and people (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Initially, an important attention has been oriented towards the geographical associations to the country-of-origin effect (Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Johansson et al, 1985) later on evidencing that a defragmentation into of smaller geographical units may be appropriate at urban level (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015) to highlight the relevance of the "origin" not simply in relation to a broad geographical context where the brand manufactures a product but also „the place, region or country where a brand is perceived to belong‟ (Thakor and Kohli, 1996, p. 26). The origin being not only a matter of product production but more of product conceptualisation, perception or consumption going towards the "brand product usage context" (Gerr et al, 1999). Brand product usage happen in those spatial circuits whose cities are part of and whose role may be conductive to the „local origination‟ of product brands, adding value to the birth and internationalisation of locally originated brands (Pike, 2011). Those local brands are developed from an ecosystem composed by relations and ownerships involving a multiplicity of stakeholders whose customers are an integral part (Power and Hauge, 2008). In the literature, Fashion capitals is a unique case of those ecosystems with a specific relationship between industry and spacial circuits is based on the urban context instrumental to fashion creation and also to consumption (Breward and Gilbert, 2006). The city as a part of the consumer culture and in particular as part of the brand product experience (Thrift, 2004). As a result of the literature review and the conceptualisation of fashion capitals as ecosystems conductive to the fashion creation and consumption, an exploratory study of: Which context related variables affect new Chinese luxury brands identity and value and how the China fashion capital ecosystem affects Chinese luxury consumers brand perception. The paper will show an insight of the instrumental relation of the "brandscape" Shanghai and the impact on the Chinese luxury brands value and identity acquisition with respect to Chinese consumers.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how a luxury brand may be affected by the variables associated to a new market entry as the Chinese and how those new market variables are integrated in the process of rebranding in the new geographical context. In doing so, the paper will review the existing literature in the field and following three derived propositions through a qualitative approach, it will analyse the successful brand strategy of three Italian luxury brands. The luxury brands considered in our investigation are three international ones with a specific consolidated brand heritage and with a multisectorial positioning. The methodological approach chosen in the analysis is the case-study method (Yin, 1984) with the specific purpose of focusing on a particular phenomenon instead of generalising (Schramm, 1971). Following the case-study methodology, this paper will explore and analyse the specific luxury brand building and rebranding process adopted by three Italian luxury brands to enter the new market and specifically through the digitalisation of the brand. The abstract will report a summary of one case as a reference sample. The empirical research will evidence the positive impact of digitalisation for successful luxury branding and rebranding in entry market strategy and justify its adoption in the exclusive luxury sector by the socio-cultural context-related factors of the new market. It will provide specific orientations and recommendations as well as best practices for luxury corporations on the specificities of branding and digitalisation of luxury in China. The research will show a successful model path for luxury branding when entering the Chinese market and the key impact of the “luxury digitalisation” strategy - usually associated to high accessibility - with respect to a traditional “luxury retailing” strategy - associated to the exclusivity of the luxury sector. Introduction The increasing interest in luxury brands in the fast growing economies of Asia, with particular attention towards China, has supported the growth of the luxury market in the last years. China, the global second largest economy, with the global largest consumer market, has reached a role of an undisguisable strategic leader in the luxury market. Far from theexponential double digit growth rates characterizing China’s growth in the past decades - as high as 14.2% in 2007 – at the moment it is entering a different phase of growth. A recent trend is tending to see China as the source of a multiplicity of diversified aspects impacting the global luxury market scenario – despite the fact that luxury industry market situation is not simply China related. The ongoing Chinese growth in the last decade has been associated with a decrease in European and US markets. In addition to this, further issues have negatively affected the market grow more related to Chinese market specificity. Chinese exponential luxury market growth has negatively influenced the exclusivity aura associated to luxury goods and consequently disrupting non-Chinese luxury customers and Chinese top spenders luxury brands orientation. In relation to the economic crisis in consolidated markets, international luxury brands have focused their interest towards fast growing economies. As a result, global brands have focused their attention on attracting fast growing economies with a specific growth in affluent consumers interested in foreign brands and in an augmentation in global consumption (Le Monkhouse et al., 2012). As a consequence, China has attracted much attention by significantly contributing to balance the sales decline in consolidated economies that in 2013 accounted for 28% of the €212 billion global luxury consumption (Schiliro, 2013). In the new luxury oriented Chinese context, local shoppers have started to become brand aware of what they were in the past and with a specific focus on luxury fashion brands (Bruce & Kratz, 2007). However, it would be too limited to simply consider that the volumes of the market and focus on luxury brands is resulting only from consumer intentions to purchase luxury brands. A multiplicity of factors and in particular context related factors affecting shoppers luxury brand perception and luxury goods purchasing experience must be considered and as a consequence those context related factors that may affect the branding process itself. China's culture is different from Western cultures (Henriksen, 2009), and thus, Chinese luxury consumption may not follow the trends of the Western world. The Chinese perceive luxury brand value in terms of China's unique cultural background and as a consequence of the Chinese economic development, the Chinese luxury lifestyle is gradually evolving and beginning to show its own distinct characteristics. Although prior research related to luxury examines different cultures and markets such as the US, Indian, European, the Chinese luxury context and its impact on luxury brand when entering this market have not been examined sufficiently. Literature review Luxury Brands, Rebranding and the Chinese Context Literature teaches us that “luxury” is used to denote the main category of highly prestigious brands (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). In the same way, luxury brands are related to wealth, exclusivity and power and are related to the fulfilment of nonessential desires (Brun et al., 2008 and Dubois and Gilles, 1994). “Luxury brands” comprises highly quality, expensive and nonessential goods and services that are symbols of rarity, exclusivity, prestige, and authenticity in for their consumers and they can provide highlevels of symbolic and emotional value (Tynan, McKechnie, & Chhuon, 2009). Vigneron and Johnson (2004) and later Wiedman et al. (2007) defined the concept of luxury as the physical and psychological values provided by prestige of luxury brands and consequently highlighting the symbolic and conceptual dimension associated to luxury. However, it was evidenced how the dimension is strongly associated to the cultural values and to the social environment by considering luxury goods representatives of individual and social identity (Vickers & Renand, 2003). These elements of exclusivity, prestige, rarity as well as individual and social identity are the key values distinguishing luxury from nonluxury brands (Tynan et al., 2009). In the same perspective, Kapferer (1997, p. 334) highlighted the importance of those luxury brand values in evidencing that brand memory and brand values should not be abandoned when the brand is revised suggesting that rebranding is an incremental process in contrast to a radical change. The Digitalisation of Luxury Brands and the Chinese Market In the western countries, the elder people mainly compose luxury customers, while luxury consumers become younger (about under 40 years old) in China. The increasing number of middle-level class has been the main force of online luxury consuming. The consumption concept of younger customers are huge different from that of traditional customers. Solomon (2009) expressed that customers’ behavior is a dynamic concept because they are influenced by the outer factors and inner elements (Solomon, 2009). A survey from McKinsey & Company indicates that there are almost 90% of Chinese Internet users living in tier1, tier2 and tier 3 cities have enrolled in a social-media site and Chinese people can be regarded as the world’s most active social-media population, around 91% of respondents telling they visited a social-media site in the previous six months, followed by 70% in South Korea, 67% in the United States and 30% in Japan (Chiu, Lin, & Silverman, 2012). The Chinese social and cultural context is increasingly becoming “digitally savvy” and Chinese citizens are more likely to gain information from Internet when they would make shopping decisions. First Proposition Indirect orientation for the first proposition comes from Vickers and Renard (2003) conceptual development that evidences that the conceptual dimension of luxury is strongly influenced by cultural elements and by the social context. Consequently it derives that the digitalisation of luxury as a part of the social and cultural variables of contemporary Chinese consumers’ market will be conceptualised in the rebranding process for luxury brands when entering the Chinese market. Second Proposition Specific support for our second proposition comes from Kapferer (1997) theory highlighting that successful luxury rebranding has to keep least certain core brand elements to have a proper transition from the existing luxury brand to the revised luxury brand in the new Chinese market. The digitalisation process for rebranding will evidence the core elements kept as a part of the brand heritage and identity.In the re-branding process new market segments may be touched or even new markets (Kapferer, 1997). Successful luxury rebranding may require meeting the needs of new market segments. As a consequence, in our third proposition it is assumed that new attributes to the brand may be required to satisfy the new market and in particular the Chinese digitally savvy” segment. These principles of rebranding applied to our Chinese luxury context refers to the existing literature relating to re-create the brand vision to entry the new Chinese market. Research questions and methodology This research aims to analyse the impact of cultural and social variables of a new market, the Chinese one, in the redefinition of a luxury brand and in particular: - the evolution towards a new digital orientation as a response to the needs of the new customer segments - the specific socio-cultural characteristics of the new Chinese market customer segments In order to provide specific responses from the field, the empirical research methodology is based on the case analysis method (Yin, 1984). The luxury brands cases considered in the research have been kept anonymous in order to keep the confidentiality of the data collected and consequently referred as A, B and C. It has been based on interviews carried out in China and in Europe with the management of the luxury brand, with a sample of its customer segments and also on the published data of the corporation. The Case of an Italian Luxury Brand in China The A case: Rebranding through Digitalisation for Successful Entry in the Chinese Market Out of the three cases, A is an Italian global luxury brand with an established brand image and heritage internationally. Its positioning as authentic luxury brand worldwide specifically focus its image on exclusivity, originality and innovative design. China, which was entered lately with respect to the other geographical markets in their global strategy, has now become clearly the main focus. Its entry strategy has been oriented towards a progressive reinforcement of relations between brand and market, in particular in relation to the digitalisation of the market and its consumption mode. The brand started opening the main flagship store in the Mainland China capital Beijing and following with the fashion centre Shanghai at the beginning of 2006. After a few years of gradual expansion and monitoring of the market evolution, the brand can nowadays count on a consolidated flagship store network adding value to the brand awareness. Counting on the younger Chinese luxury market segments, the brand had a remarkable immediate growth in the market as a result of its brand core values and image as well as of its own digitalisation of the brand development strategy. The growth and consolidated positioning allowed the brand to start a brand expansion strategy by introducing the cosmetics line in department stores after clothing and apparel and perfumes. Conclusion A luxury brand focused on a specific rebranding as entry strategy for the Chinese market through the integration between the socio-cultural variables associated to the local context and the core components of the brand. A transferred the brand to the Chinesemarket by maintaining its own young style and image, specifically suitable for the young Chinese luxury market. In the initial phase of the Chinese market entry, A focused on reinforcing the brand image and awareness in the local socio-cultural context by developing their retail and distribution in particular by having key premium locations, fundamental to communicate the brand identity and core values. However, the retailing network was not perceived as sufficient to create “a social buzz” in the Chinese young socio-cultural context that is specifically influenced by digital media in this geographical environment. The analysis of the brand and its entry strategy in China have clearly shown that they entry and kept expanding in China from first to third tier cities and to different targeted segments by developing an intelligent digitalisation of the brand. Starting from developing a Chinese version of the brand name, A brand modified its brand name as a main strategy to giving meaning to the brand in the Chinese socio-cultural context, as well as emphasizing the heritage of the brand and creating a strong position in the mind of the Chinese consumer and creating a strong advantage in the digital search positioning. Furthermore, in analysing the market socio-cultural digital trends and the decreasing reach of conventional media and the increasing one of the digital ones, A decided to focalise on a diversified use of digital media in their entry strategy - through online video advertising and the growing digital out of home as well as local search engine as Baidu or local social networks, BAIDU Sina.com Wechat Youku and in particular online influencers and BBS, Bullet Board Systems – by clearly choosing to rebrand through the digitalisation of their luxury brand in compliance with the socio-cultural variables and trends of the market. The sample case will be reported and the model path for branding and rebranding in the Chinese context will be presented.

China has become a key market for the luxury fashion industry. Yet the relationship with the role of digital marketing is still mostly unexplored. The increase of Internet in China has been Impressive. A report from CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) indicated that Chinese netizens increased to around 0.632 billion. Internet has a deep impact on people’s life, changing their lifestyles and consuming behaviours. For luxury brands entering Chinese market, the competition becomes fiercer. Despite the traditional marketing model, an increasing number of luxury companies are orienting their strategy towards the blue ocean—on-line market. On-line luxury fashion commerce has become a creative joint of Internet technology and business operations. Despite the fact that the Chinese market is regarded as potentially the fastest growing market for the luxury industry, many challenges exist nowadays since China is a young player in both luxury industry and e-commerce field. Some experts in the field believe that the limitation of customers’ experience is the most essential problem, and some others assert it would be difficult to do on-line marketing for luxury products. Besides, there is still an ongoing debate on the key factors that determine the success of on-line sales in luxury industry. Luxury Fashion customers are mainly composed by elder segment, while luxury consumers are increasingly becoming a younger segment (about under 40 years old) in China. In particular, their consumption concept is very different from that of traditional customers. A survey from McKinsey & Company indicates that there are almost 90% of Chinese Internet users living in tier1, tier2 and tier 3 cities have enrolled in a social-media site. Moreover, Chinese people are regarded as the world’s most active social-media population, around 91% of respondents telling they visited a social-media site in the previous six months, followed by 70% in South Korea, 67% in the United States and 30% in Japan (Chiu, Lin, & Silverman, 2012). This article is based on an exploratory study analysing the current situation of Chinese online market and the online shopping websites. Through interviews with customers who already had online luxury shopping experience and a questionnaire to about 150 potential customers of online luxury shopping websites, this paper tries to identify some of the key factors affecting the purchasing behaviour of Chinese customers of luxury fashion products. Based on the understanding of the current situation and the innovative role played by the digital orientation of purchasing behaviours in luxury, this article will introduce some hypotheses in order to verify the assumptions associated to key challenges and success factors in the Chinese market which can be the reference for luxury companies to fix their on-line marketing – pricing, distribution network, fashion brands variety. The exploratory study in the field has already showed specific results. With respect to pricing strategy for online purchasing, results showed clearly that besides the fact that traditional luxury purchasers are not price-sensitive also in relation to the fact that luxury products high price is a symbol of exclusivity; the modern luxury fashion Chinese customers, mainly composed by people younger than 30-years old, enjoying the wealth accumulated by their parents and other family members, have better education backgrounds which makes them have little conceptions about the purchasing power of currency. Logistics, which contain the products’ packaging, delivery mode and time and comprehensive quality of it appeared to be the one of the most important way to present the e-retailers’ services for online luxury customers. Through customers purchase luxury products online, the majority of them are still expected to enjoy the luxury experience and services just like in the traditional luxury boutiques. Based on the knowledge and the previous studies of luxury consumers and Chinese e-commerce two hypotheses will be proposed and verified in the empirical study. Furthermore, Supply channel for online luxury shopping websites have also shown to be also particularly relevant as the product quality and the modes are the most attractive factor for customers. A qualified supply channel will guarantee the products’ quality and variety for customers. Chinese market has its own characters and Chinese citizen shopping habits are also distinct, obviously, the current situation in China has indicated that luxury brands and e-commerce still in the run-in period. Through there are some successful cases in western countries which can partly provide some key factors for Chinese market, it is impracticable for luxury brands and some retailing websites copy their experience and follow those “rules” in China. It is quite critical for both luxury brands and e-commerce companies recognize the difference existed in this market, understand the real situation and then modify their marketing policies. This study has only analysed some of the key issues affecting the purchasing patterns of luxury fashion customers. Consequently more quantitative and qualitative research in the field that analyses it from different perspectives it is suggested.

Chinese nationals already make up one quarter of global luxury consumption and therefore represent the biggest group of luxury consumers worldwide (Bain & Co, 2012). It seems that there exists a considerable imbalance between the Chinese consumption and production of luxury. Many Western luxury consumers can hardly name a single Chinese luxury brand. However, although it is not on the radar of many experts and most consumers yet, the luxury business community in China is already emerging in big steps. China became an important manufacturing hub for semi-finished luxury products, which already helped building-up industry-specific know-how. The country is also best representing the entrepreneurial spirit in the luxury segment; there is a variety of Western and Chinese market players setting up China-specific luxury brands. New Chinese luxury brands include, for instance, Longio (watches), Mary Ching (shoes), NE Tiger (wedding dresses), Qeelin (jewelry) and Shang Xia (apparel, interior decoration; Heine and Phan, 2013). For the last decades, consumers and marketers strongly believed in the basic principle: Western stuff is hot – and Chinese stuff is not (O'Cass and Siahtiri, 2013). So are Chinese consumers actually ready for Chinese luxury brands? The objective of this paper is to analyze the challenges and strategies of Chinese luxury start-ups – with reference to the attitudes and preferences of Chinese luxury consumers. As Chinese luxury consumers and brands are still underexplored objects of investigation, which cannot be understood adequately by mere quantitative research, we employ an explorative approach with reference to the Grounded Theory. Based on a selection of (potential) Chinese luxury brands, we derive criteria that help answering the question: What are actually Chinese Luxury Brands? The “Chineseness” of a luxury brand depends, for instance, on the location of its headquarters (Mainland, Hongkong or even Taiwan) and the nationality of key people involved including the founders, designers, artisans and the CEO. Based on an analysis of potential Chinese luxury brands, we identified nine major types of players in the Chinese luxury market and their strategies to create Chinese luxury brands. Major Chinese luxury players include, for instance, Western luxury corporations, Chinese designers and Chinese (state-controlled) corporations. It already became quite common for Western luxury corporations to set-up their own more or less “Chinese” luxury brand. For instance, Hermès created Shang Xia and Estée Lauder Osiao (cosmetics). Other options for Western luxury brands include taking over Chinese luxury ventures (such as Shanghai Tang by Richemont) or acquiring Chinese premium brands or traditional Chinese handicraft brands in order to upgrade them into luxury brands. This is done, for instance, by LVMH group, who acquired a majority share in the time-honored winemaker Changyu. Many well-known Western luxury brands such Chanel or Dior were set up by designers. Accordingly, there exist already some successful Chinese fashion designer brands such as NE Tiger (since 1992 by Zhifeng Zhang), Maryma (by Mary Ma since 1999), Rose Studio (by Guo Pei since 1997), and Xander Zhou (since 2007), who may develop into (international) luxury brands. Similar to entrepreneurs, some big Chinese (state-controlled) corporations corporations aim expanding into the luxury segment because they expect attractive business opportunities, but may also aim to improve their corporate and/or brand image. Examples include Shanghai Vive by Jahwa group and SheJi-Sorgere by China Garments group. The combination of market players and their desire and strategies in creating country-specific luxury brands is truly unique to China. For instance, big luxury houses such LVMH never perceived another market such as Germany or the US as that specific and above all relevant enough to set up a specific luxury brand especially for that market. In the subsequent section, the paper shifts its focus to the Chinese luxury consumers. At the very core of this discussion lie the mobile and multi-faceted (and sometimes ambiguous) associations of China with luxury perception (Rovai 2014). These relate to both consumer behavior (the Chinese market for luxury) and production (the reputation of Chinese producers of luxury goods and services). Based on a content-analysis of current literature and press, we categorize and discuss the factors that may impact the attitudes of Chinese consumers towards Chinese luxury brands with reference to the major luxury consumer segments in China. These factors include, for instance, the increased sophistication of consumers, the international exposure of Chinese consumers, the rejection of “potlatch behaviour”, the empowerment of women in Chinese society, the emergence of a creative class in China, the slow fashion movement, the reversal of intergenerational influences, and the “sinofication” trend – the New Cultural Revolution led by the “young emperors” (or “Sugar Generation”), the generation born after 1978 (Wang and He, 2014). Subsequently, we are analyzing the attitudes and preferences of Chinese luxury consumers with a small-scale qualitative survey. We concentrate on the “young emperors” generation and especially on the segments of white collar workers and the second generation rich. We conducted several in-depth interviews about their luxury preferences and then, following an empathic research approach, we went shopping together with the respondents to develop a better and real-life understanding of these luxury consumer segments. The results are content-analyzed and presented with reference to case studies of Chinese luxury brands. On the one hand, the sophistication and sinofication trends of the Chinese creative class may threaten the big Western luxury brands, but on the other hand, they create a basis for the development of Chinese luxury start-ups and increases the chances of Western luxury SME’s and connoisseur brands in China. Based on our analysis of the Chinese luxury consumer behavior, the paper concludes with some recommendations for the development of luxury brands in China.