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International purveyors of luxury fashion, meanwhile, are bucking the trend. It was this sector that recovered quickly after the global recession of 2008-09, with many luxury conglomerates reporting double-digit sales growth this year.
However, for those who can afford it, a new type of luxury has found its footing - an uberluxury that captures the desire for personalised, rare and premium-quality luxury goods, albeit at an inflated price.
'Uberluxury', or 'hyperluxury' as it's also been dubbed, lies in the middle ground between ready-to-wear fashion and haute couture, contrasting with the pervasiveness that mainstream luxury has acquired. It has emerged as a backlash against the democratisation of mass-produced luxury.
Since the 1990s, well-funded conglomerates such as LVMH, Richemont or the Gucci Group have been rapidly buying up smaller brands and turning them into big international names with stores all over the world. Expensive malls in cities around the globe are becoming increasingly homogenised. And the proliferation of the internet and fashion media have also made luxury feel more ubiquitous.
Fashion's increasing democratisation is welcome news to most in the industry, but the wealthiest and most discerning customers have begun to yearn for goods not only high in quality and branded but also very rare. They don't want to be wearing the same thing as the next-door neighbour or starlets in trashy gossip magazines, even if it does have a label on it.