Affordable Luxury in Bath

‘Affordable Luxury’ A concept less explored.

Affordable’ and ‘Luxury’ are the two words usually positioned opposite to each other. While Affordable usually denotes pocket friendly, Luxury, on the other hand, is usually associated with splurging on something that is niche and desirable to the buyer. It is not true that Luxury cannot be affordable. However, the general notion of the market was inclined towards Luxury being lavish till the connected term, ‘Affordable Luxury’ has punctuated the notion in a big way. Bathrooms are no longer the ‘ignored spaces’ and have come up as one of the biggest spenders in the house purchase.

In 2016, Surfaces Reporter wrote articles on the growing disposable income, the rising aspirations through out India and how the consumer spending in bath is dramatically soaring upwards. We even mentioned about our research in Tier III cities where buyers want to emulate designs from London or New York, rather than following the metro cities of India.

Ar. Hiren Patel is passionate about giving life to each design executed at Hiren Patel & Associates. They also design stunning bathrooms. He believes Bathrooms are one of the most important part of homes for wellness & for relieving stress. However, he rejects the idea of empowering a bath space with expensive materials just to call that luxurious. “Details in bathrooms and functionality is important. Good ambiance makes bathroom rich and not the expensive products,” he said.

With Government’s recent Demonetisation move (Read full report in Surfaces Reporter December 2016) lesser cash flow has translated into reduced spendings, affecting the Luxury segment by and large. Though the impact of Demonetisation is expected to be short to mid-term, it seems that ‘Affordable Luxury’ and ‘Essentialism’ are here to stay for long.