Comments on: Investment opportunity | Luxury stocks take unjustified beating

By: The Business of Fashion

The Business of Fashion — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 20:39:50 +0000

@Anjo: Thanks for stopping by so regularly and getting involved in the Business of Fashion dialogue. We are already working on the next BoF Basics article and should have something up by the end of May. There are a lot of exciting projects on the go at the moment — so please be patient with us. @Randall: I think I’d explain the Luxxotica and Safilo devaluation this way: they are mostly making sunglasses which appeal to aspirers of the brands in question (Chanel, Gucci, Prada, etc). Not so different from Coach’s customers, most of these aspirers are not uber-wealthy. In fact, sunglasses may be the only bit of these luxury brands that they can afford apart from fragrance. But, this relative affordability evaporates in a poor economy. And so, they may think twice about laying out $300 for a pair of sunglasses if their mortgage rates have just gone up and they feel insecure about their jobs.

By: Randall

Randall — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:58:37 +0000

Interesting. It seems I can make intuitive sense of the lackluster news regarding Coach, caught in the middle as they seem to be, but I’d expect Safilo and Luxottica to be riding a little higher on that graph. Their sort of item is nearly essential to anyone attempting to grasp at least the bottom rung on their intended brands luxury ladder. Regarding the graph again; I’m clear on why the Swatch Group is reportedly, apparently, losing less inertia in this particular sorting, but am fascinated at what the group may do for their increasingly uninteresting namesake brand. It used to be that Swatch was keen to mirror fashion, right down to the key textiles of the season, but the brand seems to have no direction but the hope to reap the nostalgic vote from its soon to be mid age original client. The brand born of innovation and a sort of revolution is now anything but. Still, anything is possible..

By: Anjo

Anjo — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:28:10 +0000

I’m still getting over the fact that there’s a company called Luxottica, which is comparable only to Oxnard for the ugliness of its name. Bravo to Hermes for gaining ground in a tough market! This proves that genuine quality and discrete luxury are the way to go for luxury retailers today. Off-topic, when will we see the next installment in the BoF Basics? I’ve been anticipating it.