No recession for real luxury

STYLE

The real billionaires in the meantime are having a right royal time even as we all moan about the downturn. The luxury business both in the West and here is thriving. At the Haute Couture Week in Paris, the super rich bought as happily as ever. Many, in recent years, have predicted the downfall of haute couture but, in fact, it has not only survived but is thriving.

The website brandchannel.com recently reported how luxury brands were managing in these hard times and the story quoted Geneva-based Patek Philippe as saying they had "made no changes" in their media strategy and "cut no budgets" to adjust to the current economic backdrop. The site quoted Tania Edwards, a New York City-based vice president of the luxury watch brand, as saying, "some of our retailers actually have seen sales increase."

Edwards, in that article, went on to say "that the brand has always done best in times of recession and worst in times of boom". Her explanation: "When times are at their worst, people seek out value for quality more than anything else." The International Herald Tribune reported that "a recent survey by the consulting company Prince & Associates found that consumers worth more than $10 million in assets planned to increase their spending this year on luxury goods."

Closer home, the luxury business is doing quite well. I asked someone at Louis Vuitton about the effect of the downturn on the brand and the answer was on expected lines: "Downturns don't affect the luxury business." And that response isn't an isolated example.

The other day I quizzed someone else in the luxury business in India and this is the response that I got: "Luxury has not been affected. The economic downturn is a misery for the common man and not of the uncommon people." Luxury brand stores are still full of consumers and there is no gloom here yet.

What will fade away in the short term are affordable luxury labels. Follow this tip, if you want real luxury, in these hard times, put your hard-earned money on these brands: Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Bulgari, Bogetta Veneta and Cartier. True luxury, after all, never goes out of fashion and is recession-proof.