Leverage Affluent India narrative to blend luxury traditions with global fashion

livemint.com:

Rapid economic growth, stable monetary policies, and a boom in credit have raised the purchasing power of India's wealthiest over the past decade. The number of Indians with annual earnings exceeding $10,000 has soared from 24 million in 2015 to 60 million, now constituting 4.1% of the nation's population, a Goldman Sachs report on Friday said. The significant increase in the value of financial and physical assets in the past three years is what has powered this new affluence.

Consequently, the global brokerage house anticipates that Indian companies dealing in premium goods will surpass their global counterparts– a narrative it has dubbed as Affluent India. There will be takers for it globally, no doubt, given the international luxury market is going through a chill. The economic woes in China and projections of slowdown in advanced economies have cut short the excellent run the luxury houses were having until recently.

British luxury fashion brand Burberry has issued a profit warning for the full year, its second in three months, after store sales dropped in double digits in the Americas and South Korea. Luxury brands were once thought to be recession-proof but are suffering a global slowdown. Farfetch, the e-commerce company focused on luxury clothing and beauty products, couldn’t raise capital amid rumours of looming bankruptcy and has just been rescued by a South Korean acquirer, the e-commerce company Coupang that gave it a $500 million lifeline.

Just two years ago, in 2021, Farfetch, a proxy for luxury consumption demand, had been valued at $23 billion. Luxury group LVMH, which owns storied brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi and Tiffany, reported US market’s quarterly sales being down 2% in October. LVMH