Abstract

This book chapter analyzes the marketing of luxury consumer goods (in particular, cosmetics) in the context of questions pertaining to authenticity, simulation, and the self in meta-modernity. It is based on case studies from Germany and East Asia, where a luxury brand company had set up pop-up stores in the guise of convincing-looking record shops, cafés and club situations in which semi-fake vinyl discs (with glossy fantasy sleeves printed just for the occasion, and the vinyl grooves being either 'empty' or containing royalty-free formulaic sounds) served as mere props for creating some notion of hipness and inviting visitors to take pictures of themselves. The article scrutinizes how high-priced cosmetics are marketed for urban, trend-oriented target groups, what role totemistic mock-up records and social media's image worlds - the "selfie culture" - play in this process, and what insights about the consumer self in modernity can be deduced from such simulations.