The personal luxury goods market in the Middle-East is the 10th largest in the world, right before Hong-Kong and Russia, which are both well-established markets for luxury products (D’Arpizio, Levato, Zito & Montgolfier, 2015). However, luxury consumer behavior consumption in the Middle-East and its influencing factors have largely been left unexplored. This paper builds on previous research among German luxury consumers and investigates the formation of brand love and its impact on willingness-to-pay among Arab luxury consumers. Compared with the German study, it is found that Arab luxury consumers show weaker brand love tendencies. In addition, materialistic characteristics and tendencies for conspicuous consumption among Arab consumers strongly influence brand love in the context of luxury fashion and accessories, which confirms previous findings. Results further document that for Arab luxury consumers neither conspicuous consumption tendencies nor brand love can be interpreted as a predictor for an increase in willingness to pay. Hence, for those consumers, long-lasting emotional consumer-brand relationships are not responsible for generating additional profits and do not explain why the willingness to pay for luxury goods was significantly higher among Arab consumers. Finally, results indicate that though some elements of luxury consumption are shared among German and Arab luxury consumers (e.g. fashion involvement, the evaluation of particular brands, gender and brand love tendencies) there are significant differences in terms of e.g. brand preferences, general willingness to pay for luxury fashion and accessories and willingness to pay for conspicuous luxury goods. This research provides insights into the formation of brand love among Arab luxury consumers and how it informs luxury consumption. Moreover, it sheds light on similarities and differences across the two samples and increases the understanding of luxury consumption in a broader geographic context.

The origins of modern Consumerism can be traced back to the eighteenth century, whereby the concept ofconsumer societies began to flourish in the European block (Stearns, 2001).These were the economies that formed the hub of commercial activities, having had an access to the global products. Furthermore, post Second World War culminated into the ‗economy of abundance‘ as has been rightly suggested by Galbraith in his book ‗The affluent society‘, (1958). This affluence was the result of industrialization and technological revolution in United States and other developed countries that led to the mass production of goods and henceforth increased individuals‘standard of living. 21st century witnessed mushrooming growth in branded goods and consumer‘s aspiration to endlessly spend on luxury goods items. Since then there has been a continuous temptation on consumers end to spend extravagantly and acquire prestigious goods to appear more urbane, chic and sophisticated. Consumers choice of luxury brands is also considered as social indicators that also serve as an artifact for the reflection of their status, eminence and position in Society (Power and Hauge, 2008) Consumers incessant desire to spend on high end luxury brands such as Channel, Burberry, Gucci and Rolex have compelled researchers to understand the prime motivators and determinant factors that instigate consumer behavior towards branded goods. This paper seeks to understand the factors that influence consumer‘s selection of luxury brands in Pakistan and specifically those attributes on the basis of which different product categories are selected. The subsequent text reflects on the literature review related to consumer behavior towards conspicuous goods consumption with specific reference to luxury goods market in Asia and Pakistan.