Beginning in the 19th century, among English jewelers, for example, a segment of the luxury industry turned to the mass production of products for the general public. 2 A luxury product represents, above all, a label of quality: the buyer knows in advance that it has been created thanks to dexterity at the peak of a profession’s “state of the art” and is therefore willing to pay for the quality of such a product.

Luxury has not always been viewed as a true economic stimulant: in 18th-century France, it was often accused of many negative aspects, such as increasing its value to meet the basic needs of the poor or fostering the corruption of morals, particularly among young people. However, Paris acquired from this time a reputation as the “capital of luxury” even if this notoriety was not known by everyone: “That luxury, growing every day, begins to become an expensive and unsustainable custom in the world that invented it, that it is from here [Paris] that it spreads throughout Europe…” (Massillon, Panegyric of Saint Louis). Around a few great couturiers, perfumers and industrialists3, the constitution of large groups in the luxury industry was nevertheless conceived in France4 around the 1990s and today, luxury remains a dynamic field in full growth5. With the constitution of these groups, luxury, having seen the light of day during half of the fashion sector, has seen an average annual improvement of 5% per year for more than three decades