No one wants to pay full price for designer goods anymore. It is now an expectation that prices are slashed. This fall, retailers like Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom have asked designers to lower prices because they themselves don’t want to pay full price for things.
Oscar de la Renta begrudgingly has done so. A blouse that might have close $900 will now be $725.
Chloé has already marked down 35% less than last year.
J. Mendel cocktail dresses that used to be $3500 will now start at $1700.
Thanks for the help, really, don’t just give them away.
But actually, some refused. Chanel, Prada, and Versace among others.
“We want to respect those clients who have always given us faith and have bought our products convinced they were buying a quality product.” –Versace
[The Cut, Can Luxury Survive this Economy?]
That’s interesting. Never mind the ridiculously high budgets of flagship stores and ad campaigns. There has been plenty of documentation on horrid factory conditions for so-called quality products.
The downward spiral has yet to halt. In a world where money and logos were once the ultimate prize, retailers and luxury-goods houses are adjusting to the terms “discounting,” “shifting stock” and “stealth buying.”
The flight to quality that so many luxury-goods experts confidently predicted at the start of the global meltdown has yet to materialize. [Wall Street Journal, Buyer’s Market]
We’ve evolved into consumerists, not investors.
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