Jonas Holmqvist Kedge

Carlos Diaz Ruiz
email: c.diazruiz@auckland.ac.nz

Lisa Peñaloza
email: lisa.penaloza@kedgebs.com

Moments of Luxury: Hedonic escapism as a luxury experience

Keywords: Luxury, experience, escapism, hedonism, ethnography, 1

Understanding how consumers experience luxury represents a challenge; despite the rapid growth of luxury experiences over the past decade, luxury research remains focused on a productlogic. In responding to calls for more research into luxury experiences, we draw from a three year ethnographic study in theorizing "moments of luxury," which we define as a collectively based, consumer-driven experience that features hedonic escapism and modifications to conventional luxury characteristics. Consumption experiences become luxurious as consumers forge an unconventional form of exclusivity that builds upon aesthetic dress and movement, authentic history and decor, and exclusivity-by-practice, in achieving temporally brief, hedonic escapes from everyday life. The findings provide insights for providers of consumer experiences and for established luxury brands, both through the focus on the role of hedonic escapism in forming consumers' luxury experiences and through the identification of an alternative form of exclusivity.

Introduction

How do consumers experience luxury, and what do we mean by experiencing luxury?

Most luxury definitions focus on high-quality products sold at exuberant prices (see [START_REF] Ko | What is a luxury brand? A new definition and review of the literature[END_REF] for a review of luxury definitions), and the conventional understanding of luxury remains centered on how wealthy consumers display signals to convey social exclusivity (Grossman & Shapiro 2008;[START_REF] Han | Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence[END_REF][START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]. In contrast to this conceptualization of luxury as signals of wealth, the last decade has witnessed an increased interest in luxury as a consumer experience, to include how consumers experience "little luxuries" through personal indulgences [START_REF] Bauer | My Little Luxury[END_REF][START_REF] Hemetsberger | Because I'm Worth It' -Luxury and the Construction of Consumers' Selves[END_REF], and how the luxury experience is transformative [START_REF] Llamas | The luxury of igniting change by giving: Transforming yourself while transforming others' lives[END_REF]. This article posits an alternative conceptualization of the luxury experience as a hedonic escape from the worries of everyday life. We argue that the role of escapism is cardinal to understanding consumer experiences, yet poorly conceptualized in the literature (see [START_REF] Cova | Re-conceptualizing escape in consumer research[END_REF].

As luxury experiences now represent the fastest-growing part of the luxury industry [START_REF] Müller-Stewens | The market and business of luxury: an introduction[END_REF], an experiential approach is gaining ground in luxury research, with research on experiences such as wine tourism (Vo Thanh & Kirova 2018), designer boutiques [START_REF] Atwal | Luxury brand marketing -The experience is everything![END_REF], and hospitality services [START_REF] Pullman | Welcome to your experience: Where you can check out any time you'd like but you can never leave[END_REF]. One common theme in the emerging literature on luxury experiences is that the luxury experience is hedonic. For example, [START_REF] Atwal | Luxury brand marketing -The experience is everything![END_REF] show that consumers may enhance everyday life with a taste of luxury by adding hints of hedonism to break their everyday routines. This aspect of consumption is widespread, as evident in infusing hints of luxury into everyday life through small indulgences [START_REF] Bauer | My Little Luxury[END_REF][START_REF] Hemetsberger | Because I'm Worth It' -Luxury and the Construction of Consumers' Selves[END_REF], such as self-gifting a barista-brewed craft coffee during an otherwise monotonous workday. The little luxury thus becomes a small hedonic break.

In this article, we recognize that hedonism is crucial, yet we argue that hedonism alone is not enough to characterize a "moment of luxury". We build on [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF] who argue that the literature on democratization of luxury is mistaken in saying that indulgence is enough. According to Kapferer and Bastien, exclusivity, in the form of social stratification, is crucial for luxury, yet missing from mere indulgence. If the luxury moment were only about hedonism, then every fun moment would be luxury. Something more is required to define the experience, but there is a gap in the current research on how this experience might look. We set out to address this research gap through the following question: what constitutes a moment of luxury for consumers? More precisely, what are the elements and processes that come together to form the experience of the moment of luxury?

To answer this question, we conducted a three year ethnographic study immersed in communities engaging in a hedonic experience: salsa events. Salsa is not luxury in a conventional understanding, yet definitions of luxury evolve over time [START_REF] Cristini | Toward a general theory of luxury: Advancing from workbench definitions and theoretical transformations[END_REF].

A high price is often seen to define of luxury [START_REF] Han | Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence[END_REF]. However, [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]2012) argue that price alone is not enough for luxury. Something more is needed; they propose that exclusivity is key to luxury, but recognize aspects including hedonism, aesthetics and authenticity. We extend this understanding by positing that not only is price not the only determinant of luxury -perhaps price is not needed for all luxury? We agree with [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF] that exclusivity is crucial, and we extend their definition by arguing that exclusivity can be achieved in other ways than price. Hence we do not propose that all salsa is luxury, but rather that salsa events in which consumers combine classic luxury aspects such as a hedonism, aesthetics and authenticity with an alternative form of exclusivity can become the escapist experience we term moments of luxury.

Salsa socials serve as an appropriate context for study because here consumers combine modified versions of classic luxury attributes, including hedonism, aesthetics, authenticity, and exclusivity with escapism to transform the experience into a moment of luxury. Our main contribution thus consists of (a) identifying and developing elements constituting the moment of luxury, and (b) conceptualizing this brief, hedonic escape from the routines of ordinary life.

We structure our article as follows: we start by reviewing the multiple definitions of luxury, in extracting core attributes of luxury. Next, we review the literature on consumer experiences to further derive key aspects of the luxury experience. For our empirical study, we mobilize an ethnographic approach using participant observation and in-depth interviews in the context of salsa events. Analysis identifies the key elements and processes by which consumers produce such moments of luxury. Theoretical contributions of this work add to knowledge of the experiential dynamics of luxury consumption by emphasizing its collective scope and distinct forms and processes of hedonism, aesthetics, authenticity, exclusivity and escapism. Managerial implications and suggestions for further research conclude the article.

Literature review

Characterizing the luxury construct

Defining luxury is notoriously difficult (cf. Tynan, McKechnie & Chuon 2010;[START_REF] Vigneron | A review and conceptual framework of prestige seeking consumer behavior[END_REF], as perceptions of luxury change over time [START_REF] Cristini | Toward a general theory of luxury: Advancing from workbench definitions and theoretical transformations[END_REF]. Han, Nunes, and Drèze (2010, p. 16) build on Grossman and Shapiro (2008) in defining luxury as pertaining to "goods such that the mere use or display of a particular branded product brings the owner prestige apart from any functional utility". This definition emphasizes the importance of prestige. However, we argue that there are multiple forms of prestige, and not all include financial wealth. To characterize the luxury construct fully, we must decouple it from its close association with a goods-logic. To do so, we use a cross-sectorial literature review (see [START_REF] Holmqvist | Service ecosystems, markets and business networks: What is the difference? A horizontal literature review[END_REF] to first identify the attributes in the literature that defines luxury, and then review key features of consumption experience in consumer research.

While "there is no single definition of luxury" (Kapferer 2010, p 43), researchers recognize the following core attributes of the luxury construct: (1) Aesthetics, (2) hedonism [START_REF] Kapferer | Luxury after the crisis: Pro logo or no logo?[END_REF], ( 3) exclusivity (c.f. the essential attribute of luxury for [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF], and (4) authenticity fostering the credibility of luxury brands [START_REF] Beverland | The 'real thing': Branding authenticity in the luxury wine trade[END_REF]. Common to these attributes is their origin in studies of product functions and appearances, and their reliance on a managerial perspective. Moreover, Ko, Costello, and Taylor (2019, p. 2) propose five attributes distinguishing luxury brands: (1) high quality, (2) authentic value, (3) prestigious image, (4) premium price and (5) a connection with the consumer. While [START_REF] Ko | What is a luxury brand? A new definition and review of the literature[END_REF] acknowledge that these attributes can apply to services and include emotional aspects, their conceptualization of luxury attributes depends on what the brand does and how the brand communicates prestige, and emphasizes premium pricing and product quality. In sum, in the literature on luxury, core attributes include hedonism, aesthetics, authenticity, and exclusivity, in addition to the product characteristics of premium quality and price. As such, when detached from the product, these attributes were important considerations in our investigation of the composition of consumers' luxury experiences.

A second stream of literature focuses on the social signifiers [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]2012) that luxury brands communicate. The consumption of luxury objects, primarily but not exclusively via high pricing [START_REF] Keller | Building strong brands in a modern marketing communications environment[END_REF], communicates social status to both outsiders and insiders [START_REF] Roper | Constructing luxury brands: Exploring the role of consumer discourse[END_REF]. However, the traditional association between high price and prestige [START_REF] Grossman | Foreign counterfeiting of status goods[END_REF] is insufficient. Recent research shows that those "in-theknow" use luxury brands to create barriers between outsiders and insiders [START_REF] Parguel | How price display influences consumer luxury perceptions[END_REF], and to foster the desirability of a group [START_REF] Vickers | The Marketing of Luxury Goods: An exploratory studythree conceptual dimensions[END_REF][START_REF] Nunes | Conspicuous Consumption in a Recession: Toning it Down or Turning It Up?[END_REF]. From this stream, we note that luxury has become a source of social signifiers not only for the wealthy but also to signaling membership within and between a broad range of social groups, as consumers integrate luxury into their lives [START_REF] Hemetsberger | Because I'm Worth It' -Luxury and the Construction of Consumers' Selves[END_REF].

A related stream of work takes an inclusive approach to luxury [START_REF] Lipovetsky | Le luxe éternel[END_REF][START_REF] Silverstein | Luxury for the masses[END_REF], as conveyed in the term masstige (from mass and prestige), in combining attributes of prestige with affordability [START_REF] Danziger | Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses[END_REF]. The "democratization" of luxury refers to the targeting of luxury brands to a middle-class audience, in infusing more affordable versions of products with exclusivity or authenticity (Twitchell, 2002;[START_REF] Vickers | The Marketing of Luxury Goods: An exploratory studythree conceptual dimensions[END_REF] to appeal to consumers' desire to attain a higher social status [START_REF] Han | Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence[END_REF]O'Cass & Frost, 2004). From this stream, we note that brand strategies may incorporate luxury attributes as firms strive to appeal to the aspirations of middle-class consumers. This analysis of definitions of luxury provides a valuable list of criteria in investigating the luxury consumption experience that is usefully supplemented with previous studies of experience in consumer research.

Towards an anatomy of luxury consumption experience: hedonic escapism

Hedonic experience is a well-developed construct in consumer research. Early work by Holbrook and Hirschman (1982, p. 132) recognized the relevance of "hedonic responses" and of the "escape from reality" (Hirschman & Holbrook,p. 98) as fundamental parts of consumption experience. Adapting consumer experiences to luxury, [START_REF] Atwal | Luxury brand marketing -The experience is everything![END_REF] built upon [START_REF] Pine | Welcome to the experience economy[END_REF]1999) work in retailing by emphasizing hedonism as a means by which consumers add a taste of luxury to their lives. Further, in contrast to literature conceptualizing consumption as need-fulfilling, utility-maximizing, reasoned choices, Belk, Ger and Askegaard (2003, p.3263) argued that highly intense emotional states and desires constitute "the motivating force behind much of contemporary consumption." Likewise, Csikszentmihalyi (2000, p.267, 271) proposed that experiencedriven activities and "experiential rewards" generate consumption, as "music, art, poetry, and dance [constitute] the creative energy of the new economy."

While hedonism has received extensive attention in the literature on consumption, escapism in consumer experiences is equally relevant, yet understudied [START_REF] Cova | Re-conceptualizing escape in consumer research[END_REF].

Extant consumer research argues that consumers escape the realities of their lives in rather mundane hedonic consumer experiences such as shopping [START_REF] Babin | Work and/or fun: measuring hedonic and utilitarian shopping value[END_REF] and in more extraordinary experiences, such as river rafting [START_REF] Arnould | River magic: extraordinary experience and the extended service encounter[END_REF] and surfing [START_REF] Canniford | Purifying practices: how consumers assemble romantic experiences of nature[END_REF]. Key to such escapism is liminality, literally the contrast between particular social categories and associated ways of being [START_REF] Turner | The Ritual Process: Structure and anti-Structure[END_REF][START_REF] Turner | Liminal to liminoid in play, flow and ritual: an essay in comparative symbology[END_REF], and the concept of consumer escapism is used in a rather broad sense in the consumption literature (see [START_REF] Cova | Re-conceptualizing escape in consumer research[END_REF] for a review).

Building on [START_REF] Tumbat | Marketplace tensions in extraordinary experiences[END_REF]Belk's (2011) critique, Cova et al. (2018) distinguish between 'escaping from' and 'escaping to', and further categorize mundane escapes, restorative escapes, and Turnerian, dramatic rites of passage and even violent war-like escapes.

According to this view, consumers may escape 'from' social settings and structures when the primary motive is to get away, and escape 'into' something where the purpose is the immersion in an alternative experiential context (see also Carù & Cova 2007). These distinctions are helpful in exploring the importance of escapism in luxury consumption.

Similarly, in including forms of hedonic escapism that break routines in their conceptualization of luxury consumption, [START_REF] Atwal | Luxury brand marketing -The experience is everything![END_REF] pointed to consumers' impressions of luxury stores and hotel designs and their pleasurable, hedonic experiences that departed from ordinary routines (see also [START_REF] Hansen | The Abstractness of Luxury[END_REF]. However, Atwal and Williams did not elaborate how luxury experiences break a routine. In investigating such consumption processes, we further draw from [START_REF] Dube | Service experiences beyond the direct use: indirect customer use experiences of smartphone apps[END_REF] distinction between extraordinary and mundane consumption experiences, even as we question whether luxury consumption need be either extraordinary or mundane. In taking into account [START_REF] Hemetsberger | Because I'm Worth It' -Luxury and the Construction of Consumers' Selves[END_REF] work noting that luxury experiences can punctuate mundane routines, we henceforth use the qualifier "extra-ordinary" quite literally, to mean experiences that punctuate, break, or escape ordinary daily routines, albeit temporarily.

In addition, previous research on extraordinary experiences has documented their transformative effects. [START_REF] Celsi | An exploration of high-risk leisure consumption through skydiving[END_REF] noted consumers' thrilling experiences in the highrisk activity of skydiving, while [START_REF] Arnould | River magic: extraordinary experience and the extended service encounter[END_REF] noted such transformations at the level of the individual and group in river-rafting and pointed to the importance of the service provider as "guide in orchestrating the delivery of an extraordinary experience." In also noting the work of firms in facilitating and designing extraordinary consumption experiences, [START_REF] Goulding | The marketplace management of illicit pleasure[END_REF] described how nightclub managers manipulated interior decoration and sound and even tolerated illegal drugs.

While previous consumer research has demonstrated the important role of firms together with consumers in facilitating extraordinary experiences, the majority of luxury research either anchors the experience in the attributes of the luxury object or describes it in overly general terms as hedonic. One exception is [START_REF] Hemetsberger | Because I'm Worth It' -Luxury and the Construction of Consumers' Selves[END_REF], research on "little luxuries," in which consumers experience luxury through indulgence and self-gifts. However, it remains unclear how consumers punctuate their routines. For Scott, Cayla and Cova (2017, p.34), studying grueling experiences at obstacle courses, highly social and physically stimulant experiences constitute windows that consumers use to break away from the dull monotony of increasingly banal white-collar jobs, adding, "when they are in the obstacles, participants are totally focused on their body and their pain."

Previous research also shows that extraordinary experiences disrupt and alter perceptions of time. For example, [START_REF] Woermann | Timeflow: How consumption practices shape consumers' temporal experiences[END_REF] investigate the time distortions experienced by athletes when fully absorbed in their activity, an experience the authors call timeflow. Contributing to the timeflow experience of snowboarders and paintballers are alignments of material and discursive practices, bodily routines, teleo-affective body and mind coordination, and cultural discourses.

Our review of the consumption literature highlights expressions of hedonism and escapism in river-rafting [START_REF] Arnould | River magic: extraordinary experience and the extended service encounter[END_REF] and skydiving (Celsi et al. 2013) that are not luxurious in any way. Hence it follows that while relevant, a combination of hedonism and escapism is not enough to turn the consumer experience into a moment of luxury.

Something else is needed, and we posit that enriching the hedonic escapist experience with hints of traditional luxury is key to turning it into a luxury moment for consumers.

In summary, we draw from the literature on luxury and on experiential consumption in exploring empirically the elements and processes by which consumers produce moments of luxury. (1) In extending the research on luxury, we demonstrate how classic luxury attributes, such as aesthetics and exclusivity [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF] combine with hedonic escapism in ways somewhat distinct from conventional understandings of luxury and from hedonic little luxuries [START_REF] Hemetsberger | Because I'm Worth It' -Luxury and the Construction of Consumers' Selves[END_REF]. ( 2) In building on the research on consumption experience, we elaborate the transient and transformative properties of extraordinary consumption [START_REF] Arnould | River magic: extraordinary experience and the extended service encounter[END_REF], as consumers use extraordinary experiences to escape from banal and dull routines [START_REF] Scott | Selling pain to the saturated self[END_REF]. We next describe the research methods.

Method

To study consumers' moments of luxury, we carried out an ethnographic study of salsa dancing. Dancing salsa is an activity in which people typically engage to enjoy themselves and, as our findings show, salsa dancing takes on many traits of classic luxury. The study primarily entailed participant observation and in-depth interviews carried out over three years by the first two authors with two different communities of salsa dancers, with more limited observations of other salsa communities. The focus of study was evening salsa parties, for their dress and interaction codes, although we also observed and participated in informal salsa practice sessions.

Ethnography is a widely used research method in consumer [START_REF] Schau | How brand community practices create value[END_REF]) and marketing research (Cayla & Peñaloza 2012;[START_REF] Cayla | Ethnographic Stories for Market Learning[END_REF], allowing researchers to take on the roles of participants and observers [START_REF] Jorgensen | Participant observation: A methodology for human studies[END_REF]) in documenting the social significance of consumption [START_REF] Arnould | Market-oriented ethnography revisited[END_REF]. Regarding participant observation, the first two authors immersed in respective salsa communities, with periodic visits to six other dance communities. In addition, we attended over 75 salsa parties and festivals. Our immersion consisted of participation in salsa classes three to four times a week in different dance schools in Canada, Finland, France and Italy, and over 300 hours of observations in the salsa parties. We further participated in international salsa festivals in Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London, and Stockholm. Finding that the hedonic escapist moment looks strikingly similar in different communities, we do not further develop differences between salsa communities.

In-depth interviews with sixteen participants complement the participant observation [START_REF] Lofland | Analysing Social Setting: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis[END_REF]. In order not to bias the results, we never asked about any of our key terms, such as 'luxury', 'escapism', etc., and instead asked the respondents to talk freely about their experiences dancing salsa. The interviews followed a life-story approach [START_REF] Atkinson | The Life Story Interview[END_REF] in which respondents talked about how they got into salsa, and their experiences of dancing salsa.

Observing that the experience was very similar for most dancers, we selected interviewees to increase diversity regarding professional and cultural backgrounds. Respondents represent both genders and eight countries: China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Russia, and Ukraine. Their ages range from 24 to 43 years old, an age span representative of the salsa communities we studied. The professional backgrounds include postgraduate students, business people, software developers, and social workers. We observed that virtually all dancers in the communities we studied had completed higher education. The proportion of expatriates was much higher in all salsa communities than in the countries in which the salsa communities are based, possibly reflecting that many expatriates turn to collective experiences such as salsa to foster social connections. Four of our informants also perform salsa; the others dance only socially in salsa events. Most of our informants are active salsa dancers, as could be expected at any salsa party, but we further interviewed two informants who are not active dancers but sometimes attended salsa events with friends. By interviewing professional dancers, social dancers and non-dancers at salsa events, we attempt to capture an overarching view of the experience. Table 1 provides an overview of the respondents; all names are pseudonyms.

Analysis focuses on identifying the elements that characterize informants' salsa dance experiences, and then deriving the processes by which the elements combine. We were struck by the presence of classic characteristics of luxury at the salsa events, albeit in a completely different configuration than in the luxury literature. We sought to clarify in further iterations of analysis how such characteristics are driven by the collective of consumers, and to distinguish consumers' efforts from that of firms as consistent with the product focus that is predominant in the literature on luxury. We then proceeded to analyze the spatial-temporality of the combinations of elements, as differences between the salsa setting as compared to informants' daily lives and the temporality of the combined elements help us understand how consumers engage with each other to collectively construct their moments of luxury.

Table 1 here

Findings

In the next several sections we present empirical findings on how participants in salsa events live their experience. We detail the five characteristics of moments of luxury: collective hedonism, aesthetics of clothes and movement, authenticity in history and locale, exclusivityby-practice, and escapism from chores of daily life.

Collective hedonism

Our first impressions when entering most salsa events are of fast-paced Latin music and people laughing and smiling, enjoying themselves together in a highly intense and joyful atmosphere. Our interviews confirm this impression, as all informants emphasize the pleasure they take in dancing salsa. Illustrating how the salsa experience may appear to somebody attending for the first time, below Sofia recalls her first impression of going to a salsa event and the collective experience she found.

"I guess that the atmosphere was the first, people are happy. For some reason, people are happy and smiling on those classes. I guess that it is the music, that makes you feel happy, it is a happy music, it is not sad or dramatic, or anything like that, it is very joyful"

Here Sofia points to the combination of upbeat music and smiling dancers in contributing to the atmosphere of the experience. In addition, we note that participants engage with each other and construct the atmosphere together. In addition, teachers from the salsa schools facilitate consumers' interaction by acting as DJs, intermingling and dancing with participants, and performing or presenting dance performances. The actions of the salsa school that facilitate the experience are similar to those noted in research on value facilitation [START_REF] Grönroos | Critical Service Logic: Making Sense of Value Creation and Co-Creation[END_REF] and research on the serviscape and how the setting of the service experience influences consumers [START_REF] Bitner | Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees[END_REF]).

While such hedonism has individual features, we emphasize its collective aspects. Indeed, the overall atmosphere of people dancing and smiling continues to provide the backdrop throughout the evening, and interactions at the person-to-person level soon take precedence. For most participants, we find that these human interactions are what lend their salsa experience its hedonic touch. The emphasis on hedonism achieved in dancing with others permeates all our interviews. For example, Anna sums up what she considers to be the very essence of dancing salsa, "For me, it [dancing salsa] is about complete enjoyment of music and company." Alexander explains how coming together with other people enjoying the same experience strengthens his hedonic moment.

"Everybody needs like eight hugs a day to stay happy, and in dancing you get them automatically. Plus, the people who go dancing are into actually having some fun, and it is nice to be around people who are fun and to have fun yourself."

Most informants tell us that this hedonic aspect of salsa dancing is the main reason they chose to engage in this activity. By engaging in salsa dancing, consumers take part in creating their hedonic moment. Consistent with research on how shared experiences foster hedonism [START_REF] Carù | Co-creating the collective service experience[END_REF], the quotes from Sofia, Alexander, and Anna emphasize their joy, and further point to how sharing the experience with others increases their own enjoyment. In addition, as consistent with research on collective services [START_REF] Mccoll-Kennedy | Co-creating service experience practices[END_REF], our findings provide evidence of the collective, shared nature of such hedonic experience. Our observations of salsa dancers living their experience together support this view, as their enjoyment is evident when observing the couples dancing across the dance floor.

Moreover, the observations and interviews confirm that dancing salsa is an intense and involving experience, in line with [START_REF] Atwal | Luxury brand marketing -The experience is everything![END_REF] conceptualization of luxury, and this experience allows consumers to indulge in the moment. The music and the rhythm are fast and engaging, and the dancers immersed in the experience. As an intimate, passionate dance, salsa also brings dancers closely together physically, and this close and personal connection further contributes to the atmosphere. Both the interviews and the observations thus show that consumers come together with other consumers to construct the hedonic part of the moment of luxury.

These findings confirm how the hedonic aspect of the experience, as noted by [START_REF] Arnould | River magic: extraordinary experience and the extended service encounter[END_REF] and Holbrook & Hirschman (1982), is played out in dancing salsa, as an essential aspect of the salsa dancers' moments of luxury. As importantly, we emphasize the collective basis for hedonism as one of the telling characteristics of moments of luxury, in contrast to the individual hedonism of much of the extant research on luxury. However, just describing the experience as hedonic or constructed with other consumers would not contribute to luxury research, as there is a considerable literature on hedonism. In the following sections, we further decompose this moment to understand its other components, as this composition of different parts is crucial to understanding how the experience becomes a moment of luxury

The aesthetic experience

The movements of the couples on the dance floor are aesthetic and sensual, at times even seductive. Officially, salsa events do not have dress codes, yet we find that most dancers do dress up, and that wearing particular clothing in dancing salsa contributes to the aesthetics of the experience. The women wear more elaborate and conspicuous clothes, and most male dancers wear slacks and dress shirts that differ from their everyday work and casual clothes.

Aesthetics is an important part of luxury [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]) that tends to be focused on the aesthetics of products [START_REF] Smith | Customer value creation: a practical framework[END_REF][START_REF] Tynan | Co-creating value for luxury brands[END_REF]. In contributing to the luxury experience in dancing salsa, we find aesthetics taking on a more active role as the aesthetics become enacted by the dancers themselves. By combining beautiful clothes with aesthetic and sensual dance moves, male and female dancers perform roles that emphasize masculinity and femininity in their dance. Our informant Hanna tells us about her desire to become able to use her dance to attract attention, just like the couple she just observed dancing together.

"I wish that I could be like them one day. He must be like super strong because he was lifting her so easily, and she looks so beautiful and feminine, almost floating in his hands. They really make it look so easy and beautiful" Hanna's description after watching the couple's performance emphasizes her appreciation of the beauty in the dancers' skills and appearances. This impression of striking masculinity and femininity is characteristic of the salsa experience, as dancers combine their bodily expressions, clothes, and accessories to manifest an aesthetic sensuality in their dance.

Regarding the dress code at salsa socials, the clothes and accessories emphasize masculinity for male dancers and femininity for female dancers in line with the Latin origins of salsa. Figure 1 provides an example of the aesthetic femininity characterizing the experience. Our analysis of the picture follows [START_REF] Peñaloza | Writing pictures/taking fieldnotes: Towards a more visual and material ethnographic consumer research[END_REF] in situating place and time while identifying artifacts and the positions of the dancer's body.

Figure 1 here

First, we note that the photo in Figure 1 was used by one of the dance schools in marketing its classes on social networks. The caption, "Come to be a star on the dance floor" provides an invitation to readers to partake in a transformative special moment apart from ordinary life. In addition, the photo advances the aesthetics of dress--the elegantly fitted cocktail dress--and radiant lighting in evoking an ephemeral status for would-be dancers. The focal point of the picture is the dancer's welcoming smile and her hand in synch with her partner, her sophisticated attire and bodily position stand out against the backdrop of other dancers.

In addition to the element of beauty and aesthetic appeal, dancers' combination of body, clothing, and accessories is important in transforming an archetypical illusion of masculinity and femininity fueling consumers' fantasies and aspirations. The desire to be seen as attractive is common, and the possibility to dress up and perform at the center of attention appears to be an essential part of the enjoyment many dancers derive from the experience.

Observing salsa parties, we find a dual functional aspect for some of the clothing beyond its aesthetic appeal in contributing to the experience. The dancing heel for female salsa dancers, illustrated in Figure 2, is a ubiquitous artifact of the salsa experience and plays a vital role in performing the aesthetic salsa moves.

Figure 2 here

Many female respondents tell us how wearing dancing heels greatly contributes to the experience, in enabling them to perform effortless and gracious dancing while feeling beautiful. For the female dancer, the salsa shoe helps her to immerse fully in the experience by enabling her to reach desired attributes such as assertiveness and femininity when performing her dance. Arina explains how her use of dance shoes add to the aestheticism and to how she feels about herself while taking part in the salsa experience and putting on her dance shoes and skirt. As our observations and interviews show, aesthetics, so vital to classic luxury [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF], also play a vital role as part of the means by which dancers infuse their experience with a hint of luxury. Here, salsa dancers use artifacts such as the dance shoes and exquisite clothing in performing elegant dance moves that enhance the aesthetics of the experience, elevating it to a moment of luxury. In analyzing further our observations and interviews, we distinguish this aesthetics, forged in the clothing, movements, and mannerisms that enable dancers to feel like a star, as distinct from the aesthetics noted in product settings as an integral part of luxury [START_REF] Berthon | Aesthetics and ephemerality: Observing and preserving the luxury brand[END_REF], and from 'just' another fun consumption experience.

Authentic experiences

Our analysis of a Cuban salsa school shows how the school attempts to create an authentic setting to further make the experience special. Authenticity plays an important role in strengthening the image of luxury brands [START_REF] Beverland | The 'real thing': Branding authenticity in the luxury wine trade[END_REF]) and reinforcing the heritage setting luxury apart [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]. In line with research finding how invoking authenticity benefits expatriate service providers seeking to offer an experience of their home country (Kraak & Holmqvist 2016), the Cuban salsa school employs their ties to Cuba to enable this Cuban heritage to reinforce the consumers' experience. The founder of the school is Cuban, and recruited several Cuban dance teachers to the school.

In order to enter the salsa school (four dance halls), we pass through a small restaurant called La Habana. Its owners are Cuban, and the site functions as a meeting place for the city's Cuban community. The salsa music and Cuban decor inside help set the mood, in ways consistent with previous research showing how inspiring interiors appeal to consumers looking for hedonism [START_REF] Kaltcheva | When should a retailer create an exciting store environment[END_REF][START_REF] Holmqvist | The impact of an exciting store environment on consumer pleasure and shopping intentions[END_REF]. We observe that students at the dance school gather in the restaurant after classes for a meal or a mojito.

The cooperation with the Cuban restaurant helps the school lend the experience an authentic flair, bringing the origin of salsa to mind even at this Northern latitude. As Martin explains "I didn't even know this place [the restaurant] existed before, but it's just like opening a door into Cuba. It's just like some small sleepy Cuban restaurant. A few Cuban regulars, mojitos, those faded pictures from Havana and Che

Guevara."

By fostering authenticity, the dance school makes an effort to connect to its Cuban heritage. Even when speaking English to students, dance teachers use Cuban slang for all dance moves, and between themselves, all teachers speak Cuban Spanish. This conscious effort to provide an authentic servicescape appears to strengthen the consumer experience.

Several salsa dancers tell us that they are learning Spanish to get a deeper feel for the salsa heritage. Anna explains how her desire to connect with the authenticity of genuine salsa plays a part in her impressions of the dance school.

"I realized that parts of the real salsa culture were also present here [at the school] as the teachers are Cubans. I learned more about the culture behind salsa by getting to know them. And I started learning Spanish, I felt it would help me understand this whole thing better."

To further connect to the heritage and authenticity of salsa, the dance school offers its students the possibility to travel with two of the Cuban teachers to Havana to discover the history and heritage of authentic Cuban salsa where it first developed, and to connect with the local Cuban salsa community there. Anna explains why she decided to take two weeks off to go with the salsa school to Cuba.

"I wanted to go on this trip [the salsa trip to Cuba] because I wanted to discover the roots of the dance. And there in Havana, we met and danced a lot with local dancers and learned more at a deeper level. My image of salsa took on a deeper meaning, I felt I could understand it better."

The findings show that connecting to the origins of Cuban salsa contributes to a feeling of authenticity that further strengthens the experience. In building on research showing perceptions of authenticity to play a decisive role in consumer perceptions of service (Kraak & Holmqvist 2016) as well as in strengthening luxury brands [START_REF] Beverland | The 'real thing': Branding authenticity in the luxury wine trade[END_REF], we extrapolate from our findings in pointing to the importance of authenticity as one of the characteristics by which consumers elevate their experience into a moment of luxury.

Exclusivity by practice

In many luxury definitions, exclusivity is the sine qua non of luxury [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]. However, this understanding of exclusivity is usually limited to that attained by procuring a product by paying a high price [START_REF] Berry | The idea of luxury: A conceptual and historical investigation[END_REF][START_REF] Han | Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence[END_REF]. In contrast to relying primarily on price, our findings indicate additional ways to achieve exclusivity through achieving mastery of particular skills. We term this sense of achievement 'exclusivity-by-practice' to complement 'exclusivity-by-price' in the luxury literature.

We further build on Cova and Cova's (2002) description of ephemeral groups distinguished from others by a shared passion, in emphasizing that dancing salsa requires hard work, and becoming a good dancer involves costs in form of both time and practice.

Unlike a dance party in a club that anyone can attend, a salsa party includes specific limitations. No one is turned away; quite the opposite, most parties begin with an hour of teaching so that beginners can receive instruction and learn at least some basic dance moves.

Even so, being able to engage with other dancers and synchronize movement require practical skills.

Interviews with two non-dancers who accompanied friends to salsa events help illustrate the notion of exclusivity-by-practice. John joined salsa-dancing friends for a salsa party after hearing the friends comment on how warm and inclusive the atmosphere is. However, instead of an open and welcoming atmosphere, John reported feeling excluded.

"I felt handicapped not knowing how to dance salsa. Besides, anybody can come and 'borrow' the lady that you were talking with."

Contributing to John's exclusion was his lack of required skills and unfamiliarity with the codes of the community, which dictate that dancers accept dance invitations even in the middle of conversations. A similar view concerning the crucial importance of mastering the dance skills comes from Lena, who sometimes joins salsa-friends for parties. Unlike John, Lena has taken some basic solo salsa classes in her gym, though not in a salsa school, and she admits to being a complete beginner concerning dancing salsa in a couple. Lena, a tall, blonde girl who attracts attention, admits that "When I first came to the parties, many guys immediately asked me to dance." However, she added that her lack of the required skills effectively excluded her from enjoying the salsa party in the way she can see her friends, experienced dancers, doing.

"Nobody asked me to dance twice, never! And after the guys had seen me dance, or try to dance, with other guys, they all stopped asking me."

These observations by non-dancers show how lacking the required skills can render the experience exclusive, and further, how the skills gain an aura of desirability. Illustrating how the exclusivity of the dance skills can tempt beginners to venture further, Ling explains how salsa first attracted her when she saw friends dance; the skills of the dancers made her intimidated yet also determined to learn the same skills.

"The first time that I went to a salsa party was quite intimidating [I felt that ] I

am not good enough to go, I felt quite intimidated, but I saw that people had fun when they can dance, so I have more motivation to learn more […] I saw my friends enjoying so much that I wanted to feel like that, too"

The insights from both non-dancers and dancers who have moved past the beginning stages show that taking part in a salsa party can be a challenge they find appealing. Looking at more advanced dancers, the case of Sofia is revealing. Sofia is an accomplished dancer who came third at the 2013 World Salsa Championship at the Hong Kong Salsa Festival, and whose performance appears in Figure 3. Even though Sofia now is a world-class amateur dancer, she still recalls the first salsa party she attended, after taking some introductory salsa classes, and how she felt excluded during this first party.

"I was terrified... and I sat there in the corner the whole evening thinking that I cannot do that. And I did not dance even one song. My sister was dancing and I was feeling petrified."

Figure 3 here

In three years, Sofia went from feeling that her lack of skills excluded her to become a world-class dancer whose skills draw admiration and fuel the desire to emulate her. This sense of achievement contributes to the exclusivity-by-practice at the heart of moments of luxury. The dancers have mastered a desired skill, which in turn becomes a social signifier (see [START_REF] Kapferer | The luxury strategy: Break the rules of marketing to build luxury brands[END_REF] of status within the community. Even though not all dancers will reach the same level as Sofia, most of the hundreds of dancers in the events we attend demonstrate agility and competence as the result of extensive practice. Pride is evident in both many interviews and in the ways that salsa dancers post videos and pictures of their dancing on social media. Their sense of achievement at having mastered a skill that at first seemed both intimidating and impossible, as Ling explained, plays a role in allowing them to enjoy the experience even more. These skills in turn become desirable inside the community and exclusive to outsiders; dancers admire the skills of the very best dancers, elevating their skills to a social signifier within the community, while the shared skills and codes renders the community exclusive to outsiders.

Our findings further elaborate differences between this 'exclusivity-by-practice' and the more conventional 'exclusivity-by-price' in the research on luxury. Unlike conventional exclusivity that is achieved only by wealth and ability to pay a high price, exclusivity-bypractice is achieved in effort; this meritocratic ethos gives a particular quality to the salsa community, as with other consuming tribes (see Cova et al. 2007). Given enough time and practice, people can master these skills. Not only does mastering the dance moves help bridge the exclusivity-by-practice, but it also adds a sense of pride in their achievements.

Both the exclusivity-by-practice and this sense of achievement contribute to the moment of luxury.

Temporal and Spatial Escapism

Thus far, we have described characteristics of the moment of luxury that resonate with characteristics of luxury products as described in the literature on luxury: hedonism, aesthetics, authenticity and exclusivity, with attention to key differences that result from their application in a collective consumer experience. While these characteristics are all part of the moment of luxury, we argue that they are still not enough. The most crucial part is still missing: the escapism that enables the temporality of the moment is what marks the difference of the unconventional experience as a moment of luxury. For [START_REF] Pine | Welcome to the experience economy[END_REF]1999), escapism is the most active and immersed form of retail experience. In contrast, [START_REF] Turner | Liminal to liminoid in play, flow and ritual: an essay in comparative symbology[END_REF] emphasized the liminal state as a temporary event apart from everyday reality, in the case of a cultural event or coming of age ritual.

In drawing from Pine and Gilmore and Turner in analyzing these data, we find that the short temporal duration of the salsa experience enables consumers to create luxurious moment by briefly escaping everyday routines for a different reality, even a different and temporal identity. By temporality, we refer to the limited time of the event and the disrupted sense of time that consumers can experience while the moment lasts, as noted by [START_REF] Woermann | Timeflow: How consumption practices shape consumers' temporal experiences[END_REF] among consumers immersed fully in an activity. In contrast to more conventional luxury understandings in which luxury is tied to a social hierarchy, and often anchored in ascribed social class characteristics [START_REF] Mandel | Images of Success and the Preference for Luxury Brands[END_REF]), here we find people from all backgrounds coming together to experience salsa, de-emphasizing or ignoring ascribed social classifications. Part of the experience is that the participants are just salsa dancers who interact with each other for the duration of the event, and after the salsa ends they revert to their daily lives. Sara, an assiduous salsa dancer, uses salsa to escape her routines for as long as the salsa party lasts: "I like that when I go to salsa parties, I am only Sara. Nobody knows anything else about me, except that I am a good partner to dance with, or not. I can leave all the problems at the door since nobody is going to ask me how I am dealing with my divorce." Sara leaves her personal and financial worries behind for a few hours, and salsa provides her with a temporal escape from daily responsibilities, an interlude from ordinary life. This view is echoed by Emma, who also explains how she perceives a temporary escape from daily routines as her special moment of just enjoying herself.

"Thursday is my day; it is Emma's day. I go to my salsa class, and I dress up because after the class we have a social event in the same place".

Salsa dancing provides Emma with an opportunity to reassert herself in this limited space and time, far from the responsibilities of her daily life. Salsa becomes a temporary space in which she integrates aesthetics to display her fashionable dresses, shoes, and accessories bought for salsa. This escapist experience is particularly striking in winter: salsa dancers arrive at salsa events in ordinary winter clothes, but then completely transform themselves. This aesthetic transformation is most apparent for female dancers who exchange coats and winter boots for exquisite dresses and high-heeled shoes, but many male dancers also bring special dance shoes, tight shirts, and accessories such as small gold chains to "latinize" their appearance. Both our observations and the interviews reveal that changing clothes and associated transformations in ways of being are integral parts of the escapist experience for the dancers, in which they engage fully in a moment of luxury, even if just briefly, as Emma explains.

"I like to dress up for salsa because I normally have to gear up for the weather every day because of my work. It is good to leave the jeans behind and wear a cute dress for a change."

This temporal transformation further enables the construction of ephemeral identities, another crucial part of salsa dancers' hedonic escape. In the literature on consumption, several researchers have pointed to the identities that people construct in consumption in relation to and as apart from ascribed categories of gender, class, and race [START_REF] Thompson | The Politics of Consumer Identity Work[END_REF].

In salsa dancing, part of the escapist experience for some informants is temporarily inhabiting an alternative identity and embodying it in dance tradition for their enjoyment; an otherwise timid person can take the lead on the dance floor. Ari explains "When I am dancing salsa, I pretend to be a dark and charming Latino, although I am nothing like that at all [laughter]."

Ari thus uses the salsa party to take on a new identity, as he 'escapes' into an identity very different from his real-life persona for the duration of the party. This temporal transformation into a new and different identity is mirrored in another interview, this time from the perspective of a female dancer. Sara emphasizes how the salsa experience becomes a temporal transformation for her, allowing her to escape ordinary life for a brief moment by engaging in the experience.

"I negotiate my own identity with myself, and I express it outwards [...] and in dancing... I am a diva, or I am a really sexy foxy lady if I want to be. So it is about taking up different roles and having fun being able to be whatever you want on the dance floor."

In dancing salsa, dancers temporarily step out of their ascribed identity as they construct and experience themselves anew. Sara's story emphasizes both the temporal transformation and the escapist hedonism interlaced with luxury hints such as the aesthetics that this transformation allows, showing the role of the temporal and liminal in creating moments of luxury. Our observations of salsa dancers reveal that similar temporal transformations are common in salsa parties. People who otherwise go for beer when out with friends now instead sip mojitos and introject Spanish terms in their conversations. The language and costume, together with other exclusive, hedonic, and authentic practices and aesthetics, as defined and reproduced in the community are the means by which they experience the escapism that characterizes their transformation at salsa events.

Discussion

In detailing how consumers immerse in the collective experience of salsa dancing to break away from day-to-day worries, we characterize an emerging form of experiential luxury. In characterizing the construct "moments of luxury," we modify somewhat existing attributes of luxury, namely hedonism, authenticity, aesthetics, and exclusivity [START_REF] Kapferer | Luxury after the crisis: Pro logo or no logo?[END_REF][START_REF] Ko | What is a luxury brand? A new definition and review of the literature[END_REF], to yield an experiential, collective and escapist manifestation of luxury.

Salsa parties enable temporal, spatial, hedonic and escapist luxury experience because they offer a liminal social structure where worries of daily life are set aside for a brief time.

Dancers enjoy themselves in an authentic salsa setting by constructing their aesthetic experience with other dancers, together forming an ephemeral community exclusive to those outside. The problems, chores, and routines of everyday life will remain, but for the duration of the party, the moment of luxury permits an out-of-ordinary escape.

In the extant literature, luxury remains anchored in the product attributes of pricing and quality [START_REF] Han | Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence[END_REF], aesthetic aspects of design [START_REF] Ko | What is a luxury brand? A new definition and review of the literature[END_REF], and the prestige that demarcates exclusivity via social class [START_REF] Kapferer | The luxury strategy: Break the rules of marketing to build luxury brands[END_REF]. Our findings extend current understandings of the luxury experience by detailing the anatomy of moments of luxury as captivating indulgences that punctuate the monotony of everyday life. See Table 2 for a listing of the characterists of moments of luxury.

The construct "moments of luxury" represents a hedonic and intense escapist experience that is necessarily brief, liminal, and ephemeral. This transient, collective, consumer-driven characterization of the luxury experience offers further insight into the processes underlying the taxonomy that opposes passive-active participation and absorption-immersion [START_REF] Vo Thanh | Wine tourism experience: A netnography study[END_REF]. Our analysis provides an account of how escapism allow consumers to collectively produce and engage with key aspects of luxury-hedonism, aesthetics, authenticity, and exclusivity, in experiential consumption. In addition, the types of engagement with such characteristics suggest that reducing consumer involvement hardly benefits the experience; instead, we argue that active consumer participation is beneficial for the luxury experience -simultaneously engaged and immersed. By drawing from extant research on how consumers seek extraordinary experiences to momentarily escape dull routines [START_REF] Goulding | The marketplace management of illicit pleasure[END_REF][START_REF] Scott | Selling pain to the saturated self[END_REF], our findings identify escapism as the sine qua non of the moment of luxury.

Table 2 about here

A second contribution is that, by decoupling luxury attributes from a goods-logic, we conceptualize the escapism of expertiential luxury with more nuance than previously available, in line with recent calls for more precision in research on consumer escapism [START_REF] Cova | Re-conceptualizing escape in consumer research[END_REF]. While most attributes of this moment of luxury require modifications to conventional definitions of luxury, we identify two new attributes crucial to the luxury experience: escapism and collective hedonism, that combine with the others in articulating exclusivity-by-practice, as distinct from most conventional luxury definitions based on a high price and a focus on product quality [START_REF] Han | Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence[END_REF][START_REF] Ko | What is a luxury brand? A new definition and review of the literature[END_REF]. There are some modest costs involved in dancing salsa, such as enrolling in classes, entrance fees to salsa parties, and buying clothes for salsa, yet we emphasize the acquisition and mastery of skills, rather than the price of items as the basis for the exclusivity in moments of luxury. Our conceptualizations of both exclusivity and hedonism in the moments of luxury differ from prior luxury research to contribute to understanding the experience, as we identify exclusivity-by-practice rather than exclusivity-by-price, and a collective rather than individual hedonism. We elaborate these distinctions below.

Exclusivity is common to both conventional luxury and the moment of luxury, but the meanings differ. The extant luxury literature views exclusivity as limiting access to social signifiers through high prices [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]2012). This approach, which we term exclusivity-by-price, is a cornerstone of the extant luxury literature (cf. [START_REF] Berry | The idea of luxury: A conceptual and historical investigation[END_REF][START_REF] Han | Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence[END_REF], even called the sine qua non of luxury [START_REF] Kapferer | The specificity of luxury management: Turning marketing upside down[END_REF]. Exclusivityby-price makes luxury objects inaccessible, and therefore socially immobile. Most people lacking the means to buy a Ferrari today will likely lack the means to buy it for the conceivable future, producing a static exclusivity. Our findings extend the meaning of exclusivity, while showing that it still limits access. We show that learned skills serve as both a social signifier within the community and as a barrier to outsiders, thus replicating the dual roles of exclusivity in the luxury literature but with an investment of time and practice instead of money. However, this alternative form of exclusivity is no longer static. While not everyone can become an excellent dancer, anyone prepared to invest time and effort can achieve a level to engage in the experience, and thus enjoy dancing salsa, with their sense of achievement contributing to their enjoyment.

Just as exclusivity looks different in the moment of luxury, we also identify important differences for hedonism. The extant luxury literature treats hedonism as the pleasure individual consumers derive from products [START_REF] Hagtvedt | The broad embrace of luxury: Hedonic potential as a driver of brand extendibility[END_REF]. In contrast, we conceptualize the moment of luxury as including a collective hedonic experience. We find the salsa community to be a collective where consumers come together to create their hedonic escape by engaging with others, approaching previous research on consumer tribes (Cova et al. 2007) as well as collective consumer experiences [START_REF] Carù | Co-creating the collective service experience[END_REF][START_REF] Mccoll-Kennedy | Co-creating service experience practices[END_REF]. By focusing on consumer-to-consumer hedonism, even a form of tribal luxury, we complement previous literature that only conceptualized hedonism as personal indulgence.

Furthermore, we argue that hedonism is a required but insufficient condition of the luxury experience; hedonic experiences can become luxurious only when they allow consumers to punctuate the worries of everyday life with hints of luxury.

We identify aesthetics as one of these hints of traditional luxury adding to the experience.

Aesthetics play a role in the luxury literature in its fascination with fashion, style, and prestige (cf. [START_REF] Brown | Glamour in six dimensions: Modernism and the radiance of form[END_REF][START_REF] Wilson | A Note on Glamour[END_REF]. Emphasizing the relevance of luxury aesthetics, Kapferer and Bastien (2009, p.35) even argue that aesthetics is essential for luxury. Whereas aesthetics in conventional luxury definitions refer to product design [START_REF] Smith | Customer value creation: a practical framework[END_REF][START_REF] Tynan | Co-creating value for luxury brands[END_REF], we find that aesthetics in the consumer experience are not only phenomenological and transformative, but also embodied. Dancers express their aesthetics in their dresses, in their movements and through their own bodies. Dressing up for the salsa event becomes part of their experience; they report feeling more special when wearing fashionable clothing and performing sensual dance patterns. So while conceptualizations of conventional luxury emphasize firm-provided product aesthetics in ways that render consumers as passive, as in Atwals and Williams's (2009) description of a Prada store where the aesthetics influence consumers but without them taking center stage, we find that a moment of luxury embodies aesthetics into the experience: a beautiful moment for oneself.

Finally, and most importantly, we find that the main component of the moment of luxury is the temporary escapism. In conceptualizing the luxury experience as a moment, we emphasize its brevity and its ability to offer consumers an escape. Its liminal rarity is the crux of the experience. The expression and exact form differ, as in Ari's becoming Latino, Sara's sexy foxy lady, Emma's break from her divorce or Arina's emphasized femininity, but common to all of these is that the experience allows the consumer a hedonic escape that they know will last for only a short time. Extending [START_REF] Dube | Service experiences beyond the direct use: indirect customer use experiences of smartphone apps[END_REF] distinction between extraordinary and mundane experiences, we argue that brevity is essential for luxury escapism. Consumers escape from routines to "create new identities and realities for themselves" (Atwals & Williams 2009, p. 343). By fostering brief, ephemeral breaks from routine, consumers punctuate monotony; hence, consumers can experience moments of luxury regardless of financial means.

Returning to the distinction between the 'escape from' and the 'escape into' [START_REF] Cova | Re-conceptualizing escape in consumer research[END_REF], our findings provide ample evidence that both forms of escape are prevalent among consumers' moments of luxury. Rather than one excluding the other, they complement each other. While respondents like Emma or Sara clearly use the salsa experience as an escape from daily chores, this does not mean that their escape does not also become a hedonic moment with hints of luxury, and thus something that they also relish escaping into. Our findings thus lead us to conclude that both the escape from and escape into are highly relevant to understand luxury escapism. They can reinforce one another so that the consumer is allowed both to briefly escape from reality, and also escape into an enjoyable moment, making the experience all the more appealing.

Managerial implications, limitations and future research

As outlined at the start, our conceptualization of moments of luxury represents an unconventional understanding of luxury, an understanding that is driven by what consumers do collectively and how such collective activity informs their luxury experience rather than luxury as achieved by procuring products with certain attributes. Our findings carry strong implications for service providers of different types of engaging experiences, as we show how consumers transform an experience in ways that accomplish both hedonic and escapist luxury features that render it truly enjoyable and transformative for them.

In addition, we suggest that our analysis carries important implications for managers dealing with conventional luxury servicescapes and products. We emphasize that the intense consumer experiences we have detailed are not limited to unconventional consumer activities and communities. Quite the opposite, we posit that moments of luxury are highly relevant and informative for conventional understandings of luxury. No matter how exclusive and exquisite a luxury product may be, we argue that the consumer's experience in using it matters at least as much, if not more than buying it. Hence we believe that more traditional luxury brands could benefit from our findings to strengthen their consumers' experiences.

Rather than asking if hedonic escapism in salsa is luxury, established luxury brands could benefit from asking: how do we provide an experience that is both hedonic and escapist.

Established luxury brands already possess many of the attributes of moments of luxury: aesthetics, authenticity, and exclusivity. The challenge for them is to better understand the contours of consumers' hedonism and escapism. We suggest that future luxury research could benefit from studying the servicescapes offered by luxury firms, with attention to the attributes of moments of luxury.

We recognize that our focus on a highly participative experience taps key aspects of luxury consumption experience: hedonism, aesthetics, authenticity, exclusivity, and escape.

Future research could investigate to what extent the consumption of luxury products requires active, imaginative participation. Throughout our study we find that the experience is remarkably similar for salsa dancers, as they emphasize its hedonic and intense qualities as key to escapism. As such, future research can investigate luxury experiences in settings in which consumption experience requires less involvement and intensity. Furthermore, our respondents repeatedly mention their temporary transformation, as key to their escapism. In our analysis of the findings, we conclude that enabling this temporary transformation is a defining aspect of the moment of luxury. A brief moment of imaginary transportation to enable a escapism from everyday life *'marginal' does not mean that these constructs are absent. For example, some luxury experiences can be expensive. However, we posit that these constructs are not required, hence marginal.

"

  [laughter] -now I am like, I look sexy and I have my heels on. My feminine side. [...] of course how I look is an emotional part. I think. Now I feel like this thing going. [laughter] Skirt is different." Just as a long scarf symbolizes the elegant style of Audrey Hepburn, dance heels help female dancers embody the ideal of how a salsera looks on the dance floor and how she integrates beauty in her movements. Freja reflects on how her dance shoes play a part in helping her achieve her desired transformation (see Carù & Cova 2003) from ordinary life into becoming a gorgeous, aesthetic salsera on the dance floor. "When I have my heels on me, I feel that I can... [Laughter] My hips move better, and it creates a posture, and it gives me the feeling."

  Future research can investigate to what extent this escapism applies in other luxury settings. By studying luxurious escapism in multiple settings, researchers could advance our knowledge of the differences between luxury objects and luxury experiences, outlined in Table 2 above. Future research can also focus on better understanding the essence of what luxury does for consumers, as opposed to defining what luxury is. We posit that our analysis of the moment of luxury is a step towards conceptualizing luxury experiences, but future research can conceptualize how hedonic and extraordinary moments become luxury experiences. As this article is limited to one form of unconventional luxury, future research could analyze to what extent the moment of luxury represents a desirable form of experience for consumers, as well as analyzing moments of luxury in other contexts.

  Figure 1

Table 1 : Informants

 1

	Name	Nationality Gender Age Occupation	Timespan for salsa
					dancing
	Ling	Chinese	Female 26 Entrepreneur	less than 2 years
	Arina	Russian	Female 25 Business graduate,	2-5 years
				trained in ballroom
				dances
	Hanna	Finnish	female 37 Holistic healer	less than 2 years
	Mario	Colombian male	35 Salsa instructor	Professional (dances for a
					living)
	Sofia	Finnish	female 34 Ph.D. in chemistry	2-5 years
	Jade	French	female 24 Stage performer (dance	2-5 years
				and acrobatics)
	Freja	Swedish	female 29 Ph.D. candidate	+5 years
	Maria	Finnish	female 30 Graduate student in bio-	less than 2 years
				sciences
	Emma	Danish	female 34 High-school teacher	less than 2 years
	Sara	Finnish	female 27 Journalist	2-5 years
	Juha	Finnish	male	33 Business manager	2-5 years
	Martin Finnish	male	43 Academic manager	less than 2 years
	Matti	Finnish	male	34 Salsa instructor	Professional (dances for a
					living)
	Ari	Finnish	male	36 Business researcher	+5 years
	John	British	male	32 PhD-student (non-	Not a salsa dancer
				dancer)
	Lena	Swedish	female 30 Political secretary (non-	Not a salsa dancer
				dancer)

Table 2 : Moments of Luxury: Luxury as consumer-driven escapist experiences Product oriented luxury Consumer oriented luxury Key constructs Classic constructs of luxury goods

 2

	Price	A premium price	(marginal*)
	Product	High quality products building	(marginal*)
		on craftsmanship
		Shared constructs (but with different meanings)
		Individual	Collective
	Hedonism	Product offerings designed	A moment of pleasure to break the
		around indulgence	routine
	Aesthetics	The beauty, sophistication, and	Consumers aspiring to experience and
		taste of the luxury product	display beauty in their own life
		Manufacturer's heritage and	A disconnection from consumerism
	Authenticity	founder's vision relays	in that the moment of luxury is not
		credence to the brand	just purchased but constructed
	Exclusivity	Manufactured scarcity and high	A sense of achievement through
		prices to signal social prestige	practice to signal social prestige
		New construct to understand luxury experiences
	Escapism	(marginal*)

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their detailed, critical and helpful comments to improve the manuscript, as well as the guest editors Sylvia von Wallpach, Andrea Hemetsberger, and Thyra Thomsen who handled it.

Jonas especially wishes to thank his students in luxury marketing at Kedge Business School for their active and insightful comments during the presentation of this project as part of their courses; their comments and interest for the topic played a key role in forming this article.