Understanding the relationship between the material self, belief in brand essence and luxury fashion rental

Purpose With the growing market for luxury fashion rental, we aim to examine how renting luxury fashion is related to consumers' construction of the material self, based on material self-framework. We propose that consumers adopt luxury fashion rentals to construct and manage the personal and social aspects of the material self and that their belief in brand essence facilitates the mechanism. Design/methodology/approach A total of 296 responses of US female participants collected from Cloudresearch were analyzed to test the relationships between constructs in the proposed model. Findings The results, using structural equation modeling analysis, supported the expected relationships. Specifically, whereas the social material self directly increased adoption intention, the personal material self indirectly increased such intention via the belief that rented luxury items preserve brand essence. Originality/value Our findings advance the literature by showing how the self is constructed and managed in collaborative luxury fashion consumption, from self-identity perspective. The current research reveals the important roles of two aspects of material self that respectively contribute to consumers' adoption of luxury fashion rentals. Research limitations/implications This study empirically tests the material self theory in the context of luxury fashion rental and demonstrates the processes of how consumers regard a luxury fashion rental as a tool to construct their identity. This study not only validates the two-structure model of material self (social and personal), but also incorporate the role of brand essence in revealing how the two facets of material self differently facilitate luxury fashion rental adoption.