What is Lived Rather Than Owned: Experience as the New Luxury Value

In contemporary luxury markets, value is no longer exclusively anchored in material ownership. While craftsmanship, rarity and product excellence remain essential foundations of legitimacy, they are increasingly insufficient to explain how luxury is perceived, understood and sustained. This thesis investigates the structural transformation of luxury value from possession to lived engagement, arguing that contemporary luxury is progressively constructed through immersive, relational and embodied experiences rather than through ownership alone. Drawing on the Experience Economy framework and recent debates on luxury dematerialisation, the research reconceptualises dematerialisation not as the disappearance of materiality but as a redistribution of value across time, access and participation. The product remains the material and symbolic anchor of luxury; however, its meaning is activated and intensified through experiential systems that extend before, during and after acquisition. The thesis further examines the physical–digital paradox of luxury, highlighting how digital infrastructures simultaneously expand visibility and challenge the conditions of exclusivity, ritual and emotional depth historically associated with luxury experience. Through an in-depth qualitative case study of Ferrari as an extreme luxury brand, the research demonstrates how experiential hierarchies, controlled proximity and embodied engagement allow luxury value to shift toward lived participation while preserving material excellence. Ultimately, the thesis proposes a reconceptualisation of luxury as a relational and experiential phenomenon sustained over time. In contemporary contexts, luxury resides less in what is possessed and more in what is meaningfully lived.