PurposeThis paper explores an opportunity for luxury fashion brands to strengthen their engagement with consumers through the arts and without undermining the exclusivity of the luxury product.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on an interpretive qualitative approach aiming to specifically investigate Fondazione Prada – a contemporary art gallery owned and managed by the fashion brand Prada. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and a focus group implemented with the “mystery shopper” technique. Template analysis was used to analyse the data.FindingsFondazione Prada has the potential for a deep engagement, but specific lack of dialogue and interaction needs to be addressed. Learning from and sharing values with the public through a two-way peer conversation elicited by contemporary art will benefit both the foundation and the fashion brand, in generating value as the result of a spillover effect. Thus, a significant competitive advantage might be gained.Originality/valueThis paper extends work on consumer brand engagement in physical and non-commercial “brand's places”, by evaluating the engagement provided by contemporary art foundations owned by luxury fashion brands. By leveraging the engaging nature of contemporary art, luxury fashion brands could provide an inclusive and engaging experience without undermining the characteristic of exclusivity of the luxury product and hence, gain a significant competitive advantage for the brand.

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The inability of current machines to expose biases induced by programmers and data scientists is leading towards the creation of a new religion, where machines are mystic oracles whose pronouncements have to be believed, and computer users are their servants. This has to change. In this paper we discuss the issues that can raise from biases introduced in autonomous systems, with specific care of the case of machine learning systems, and their impact on our society. In the light of the (current and future) exploitation of autonomous systems for law enforcement and war-fighting, we emphasise the importance of issues related to discrimination and safety. We also support the bold claim that artificial intelligence can help artificial intelligence in overcoming those issues: by enabling artificial intelligence to record every single step that lead to a given inference, and to argue with humans, we can unveil the mystic oracle and trust its services.

Retail layouts and atmospherics have been widely investigated within the physical retail environment, Research suggests that there is limited understanding of these elements in the virtual environment despite the fact that they would appear to be the easiest and most effective combination to implement by online fashion retailers. Considering potential applications in the fashion industry, a review of current literature on layout and atmospherics has identified the freeform layout as a valuable format for online fashion retailing. The freeform layout has been found to increase consumers' hedonic motivations to purchase. Furthermore, design and visual cues have a significant influence on consumers, while aural cues despite being very important to the consumers' experience appear to be underexploited in the online fashion space. This paper contributes a review of established retail elements, and identifies those that adapt well from the offline to online retail environment.

Social sustainability is a topic that is gaining increased attention and yet has not been overly discussed, in particular with reference to the fashion industry. There is a shift in consumer demands, where brands are urged to stand for values, affect change in the industry, and have a clear purpose and positive impact over society. At the same time, brands are struggling to provide offers beyond products, or product-related experiences, at the risk of dissatisfying consumers expectations. Part of such dissatisfaction is clearly represented by the lack of footfall in retail stores and the fast-pace abandonment of the high-street by brands that cannot afford empty stores. This paper suggests an opportunity to rethink the retail store functionality as a space for brands to provide consumers with educational initiatives related to important societal issues, hence build their socially responsible profile. A netnographic exploratory analysis of Patagonia platforms was conducted in order to pinpoint potential positive reaction to a purpose-driven brand and its educational initiatives. The brand was chosen due to its value-committed strategy and constant educational effort towards consumers, both offline (product-related) and online (societal-related). This paper suggests that brands such as Patagonia, purpose and value driven in positively impacting society, should bring their activism and educational efforts on the high-street and in the retail spaces. By doing so, brands would concurrently provide consumers with experiences beyond product consumption, could revitalise our high-street, and could reinstate a sense of community belonging while raise their socially sustainable profile. This paper contributes to the existing literature of consumer education in retailing by expanding into the specific domain of fashion, a domain in which many social issues could be successfully addressed through a socially-driven consumer education at the moment still overlooked by researchers and brands.

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Gucci Inclusivity is the Exclusivity High-street brands are aiming to generate inclusivity through the co-creation of their products; whereas luxury fashion brands have to seek inclusivity without endangering luxury product features, such as craftsmanship. Moreover, luxury brands are still experiencing difficulty in creating a relationship with the consumer fearing to lose control and the allure of exclusivity. However, it is possible to identify a successful example of attempted inclusivity among luxury fashion brands: Gucci S.p.A. This paper aims to analyse Gucci's attempt to generate inclusivity through different activities that are not compromising the perceived exclusivity of the product, but on the contrary, they are an opportunity of brand value generation. Data were collected through one semi-structured interview with the Gucci's CMO, two semistructured interviews with 2 nd-year university students of fashion marketing, and one focus group with four final-year university students of fashion marketing. All data were analysed by applying thematic analysis, and the themes of engagement, and brand experience. Findings suggest that Gucci's new exclusive inclusivity strategy incorporates a series of educational activities for selected groups of Higher Education students that provide an authentic insight into the brand. The evidence says that the strategy is appealing to Millennials and may be successful on the market.

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