Coded Luxury

Coded Luxury

P Shivani Reddy

Luxury today transcends material possession; it has evolved into a cultural and spatial language through which value, identity, aspiration, and ideology are negotiated. With the rise of Millennial and Gen Z consumers, the meaning of luxury has shifted from conspicuous display to symbolic resonance, cultural authenticity, and emotional engagement. Yet within a globalised marketplace, luxury retail faces a paradox: heritage no longer guarantees desirability, while homogenised brandscapes risk erasing local identity and ecological consciousness. The aim of this thesis is to explore the contribution of heritage, culture, and ethics to the design of flagship stores and their implications for luxury brand identity. The research begins by defining the concept of luxury and tracing the origins and evolution of flagship stores as architectural and symbolic landmarks. It examines how architecture functions as a language of power, taste, and status, embodying heritage and local narratives while serving as an instrument of corporate branding.

Drawing on cultural theory, spatial branding, case studies, and insights from the Inside LVMH program, the thesis interrogates the spatial contradictions of contemporary luxury retail — between exclusivity and inclusivity, globalisation and localisation, ecological scarcity and material excess. Using India as a site of investigation, it analyses the aspirations of Indian luxury consumers, ethical practices of localisation, and the tension between cultural inspiration and appropriation. The thesis culminates in a speculative flagship collaboration between Prada and Jaipur, envisioning a retail environment where global minimalism meets local craftsmanship, sustainable materials intertwine with indigenous narratives, and architecture becomes an active agent of cultural dialogue. It proposes a framework for experiential, ethical, and contextually resonant luxury retail — a vision where identity, sustainability, and symbolic capital coexist within spatial storytelling.

Luxury is a paradox—the interplay of timelessness and trendiness, exclusivity and accessibility, heritage and innovation. Often misunderstood and diluted by overuse, the term ‘luxury’ resonates deeply within human cultures, evoking historical myths and contemporary aspirations alike (Kapferer & Bastien, 2024; Alexander & Thompson, 2024). As noted in the foundational texts of luxury studies, “Luxury is of its time and timeless at the same time,” compensating for the failure of both excess ephemerality and excessive permanence (Kapferer & Bastien, 2024).

Culturally, luxury has always played a role in social stratification. As early as ancient Greece, luxury was a subject of both admiration and criticism—seen either as a driver of artistic innovation or a threat to societal virtue (van Dijk, 2009). From the earliest civilizations, elite classes used specific objects, spaces, and aesthetics to differentiate themselves, giving rise to the symbols and rituals we now associate with luxury (Kapferer & Bastien, 2024). In the modern context, however, luxury has undergone a process of democratisation. 

As the global landscape shiftsparticularly in markets like India the necessity for brands to localise ethically, engage culturally, and design responsively becomes not just desirable but imperative. Luxury is no longer merely economic—it is symbolic, sensorial, and deeply subjective. Customers for a Prada bag want to have a “Prada experience”, which involves enjoying the luxury of a visit to the store (Design Week 2008). The rise of “slow luxury”—a response to the volatility of fashion—emphasises timelessness, emotional resonance, and sensory immersion (Kapferer & Bastien, 2025). This interplay of global identity and local specificity sets the stage for the following chapters, where luxury’s evolving spatial and cultural expressions will be examined in the context of contemporary market dynamics, consumer behaviours, and future design possibilities.

Luxury retail store fronts have always captivated me—each one giving its host city a distinct spark, a flash of identity that lingers long after the shop doors close. My own journey with these spaces became personal on New Bond Street, London, when I visited the Louis Vuitton flagship designed by Peter Marino – whose architectural hand has shaped so many Louis Vuitton temples across the globe. At age 10, I would have gazed starry-eyed at this dazzling facade. But years later, armed with a designer’s lens, a new question haunted me: If these store-fronts are unique landmarks for their cities, why do their interiors—whether in London, New York, or Tokyo—feel like mirror images, echoing the same choreography of light, material, display, and flow?

Now, architecture is pressured by a tension it cannot escape—between thelure of exclusivity and thelogic of accessibility, between differentiation and standardisation, between being “untouchable” and being universally desirable. As designers, we are left searching for a way forward: How does one create genuinely meaningful, authentic experiences in a system where replication is the rule, and local identity is just window dressing? 

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In the context of the present, India is transitioning into a rapidly emerging luxury market brimming with potential, driven by a young, affluent, and aspirational demographic that is reshaping consumption habits. With a swiftly growing population expected to remain the largest globally, combined with a rising middle class and increasing disposable incomes, India is firmly on the radar as the next powerhouse in global luxury consumption.

What makes India especially compelling is the diversity and complexity of its consumer base—ranging from traditional elites to a new generation of young professionals, who are redefining luxury as an experience of self-expression, pleasure, and success. Moreover, luxury consumption is no longer confined to metros such as Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru; it is rapidly permeating tier 2 and tier 3 cities, like Jaipur, where affluent consumers are eager to display their individuality and social status through luxury purchases.

Luxury brands are increasingly targeting not just metropolitan consumers but affluent buyers from smaller cities, like Jaipur. Successful luxury retail strategies need to address the diversity of Indian luxury consumers—from traditional elites to young entrepreneurs—acknowledging their differing motives for luxury consumption, which range from functional use to expressions of social status and indulgence (INSEAD).

The customer journey in India involves building awareness, nurturing emotional connections, ensuring premium purchase interactions, and fostering post-purchase loyalty, often through engaging storytelling and experiential luxury. Ultimately, retailing luxury in India is about respect for the country’s cultural complexity and the ability to balance exclusivity with accessibility, tradition with modernity, and global prestige with local authenticity—capturing the hearts and aspirations of India’s discerning luxury consumer.

The Prada Jaipur flagship façade reinterprets Indo-Saracenic architecture through the lens of Prada’s minimal, timeless luxury. Drawing inspiration from the grand columns of Jaipur’s City Palace and the layered symmetry of its palatial forms, the façade evokes a sense of cultural belonging while deliberately avoiding surface-level imitation. The columns reference classical Rajasthani proportions but are stripped of heavy ornamentation, achieving a balanced visual language where heritage grandeur meets Prada’s understated modernity.

The façade is clad in locally sourced Jodhpur sandstone, its warm, pink-toned finish anchoring the store within Jaipur’s architectural identity as the Pink City. Complementing this, the iconic Prada checkered stone plinth—a hallmark of the brand’s flagship stores globally—has been reimagined using locally quarried marble and set by Jaipur’s traditional stone inlay craftsmen, embedding Prada’s global aesthetic into local craftsmanship traditions.

At the entrance, perforated jali screens reinterpret Prada’s signature geometric patterns while referencing the intricate stone jaalis of Rajasthani palaces. These double-coded perforations achieve duality: they embody Prada’s contemporary design language while enhancing climatic responsiveness, allowing filtered light and natural ventilation—an architectural dialogue between form, function, and identity.

The main entrance door further accentuates this hybridity. Its perforation pattern directly references Prada’s flagship visual codes yet subtly adapts to harmonise with the surrounding Indo-Saracenic façade geometry, making the transition seamless rather than imposed. This is not decorative mimicry; rather, it embodies cultural inspiration—adopting Jaipur’s spatial principles while preserving Prada’s minimalist DNA.

Every element has been designed to embed authenticity rather than perform it. The choice of local sandstone, craftsman-set marble flooring, and contextually responsive perforations ensures that the façade reflects dialogue, not dominance. It demonstrates how luxury flagship design can negotiate between global identity and local belonging, avoiding tokenistic gestures or appropriation by actively collaborating with Jaipur’s artisans and engaging its material heritage.

In doing so, the façade becomes more than an architectural shell; it stages a spatial narrative where Prada’s global modernity and Jaipur’s cultural richness co-exist in a layered, sensorial, and contextually rooted identity.