In a year when access to luxury, customer experience and attainment took on new forms, our macrotrend Omnilux Lifestyles revealed why the luxury experience of the future will no longer rely on tactile human-to-human moments.

In turn, brands will move away from their reliance on physical, high-touch service and surrounds, as the pandemic has shown that luxury can exist in entirely digital realms, providing anytime attainment, anywhere in the world.

Moving into 2021, we can anticipate luxury brands, goods and services will adapt and follow customers in their daily routines. Travel brands will pre-empt luxurians' health needs before each trip, aspirational affluents will shop via virtual malls or augmented experiences, while others will build sustainable, high-spec homes at the click of a mouse.

‘Going forward, it’s not China that’s the next big luxury market, it’s actually going to be the virtual world,’ explains Andy Ku, founder of Unmatereality. ‘What we are doing to digitise luxury brands is really, truly democratising the whole luxury experience.’

A campaign that pointed to the Omnilux future of brand communication and audience outreach landed in October 2020, when French luxury house Louis Vuitton chose LinkedIn as its platform of choice to stream its Paris Fashion Week show.

Rounding off the spring/summer season in Paris, the decision to choose LinkedIn as a business platform where fashion buyers can congregate, alongside consumer audiences. 'A lot of new windows and perspectives are opening,' said Nicholas Ghesquière, creative director at Louis Vuitton. ‘It’s another step towards globality, and I guess that’s absolutely necessary. We’ve sometimes made people feel excluded. So probably, it’s a way to include more people in what we do.’

Alongside a select number of in-person attendees, the show – held at iconic Parisian store La Samaritaine – integrated individual cameras with a 360-degree view, each representing a digital guest. Throughout the building, green screens allowed for trapeze artists, magicians, and other images to be projected into the space – resulting in a phygital experience curated for both in-person and virtual attendance.

While bricks-and-mortar retail has been challenged in 2020, at the very start of the year the luxury sector was shown new frontiers in retailing, with the debut of the SKP-S Mall in China.

Focusing on younger luxury shoppers, the phygital, future-bending interiors of the space were curated by Seoul-based eyewear brand Gentle Monster, which, working with architects Sybarite, seek to challenge the meaning of store design.

Comprising multiple floors, including a dedicated beauty area, SKP-S is anchored by a continually changing Art Experiment Space, which – as China’s luxury retail market recovers – will feature a roster of exhibitions and installations.

Speaking to LS:N Global in April 2020, Sybarite co-founder Simon Mitchell describes how luxury stores can win over shoppers during this inter-Covid period: ‘As humans start to feel more secure in their own environments and in their skins again, they will crave escapism. They will also want to be inspired by the subtle dimensions of what constitutes luxury and craftsmanship: the real touch, feel and textures of goods, rather than the restrictive digital media and e-commerce version of retailing.’

Now that you know what shaped 2020, discover what’s on the horizon. Download our Future Forecast 2021 report comprising 50 new behavioural patterns across 10 key consumer sectors, expert opinion pieces and interviews with global innovators.