Ken Belson and James Brooke team up for what is a sobering look at the luxury market here in Japan.
In fact, since 1996, sales of luxury goods here have declined by more than one third, to 1.2 trillion yen ($10.8 billion), according to the Yano Research Institute, which studies the Japanese economy. Total sales have fallen in five of the last six years and are expected to dip another 4.4 percent in 2003.The trend is sending ripples through the $55 billion global market for luxury goods. When their purchases abroad are included as well, the Japanese buy about 40 percent of the world's high-end handbags, shoes, watches and other items, according to Merrill Lynch estimates. For many brands, success in Japan is crucial to maintaining a strong global franchise - and no easy thing to achieve.
I, for one, am happy to see this downward trend. It matches the downward trend in real estate.
Far be it for me to criticize anyone else for their consumerism, as I am as bad as the next person, but these luxury brands have always been for old, rich women in my experience. So imagine the culture clash for me when I see young, middle-class women sport the LVMH/etc. here in Tokyo. There is such an obsession with youth culture and kawaii-ness here in Japan, but somehow that doesn't extend to luxury goods? (setting aside Murakami's LV bags.) If these young women saw who carries these bags in Europe or the US (predominantly obaasan demographic) then maybe they'd reconsider?
I second your pleasure in seeng the downward trend.
Yeah, for the economy's sake we are supposed to root for people to buy more cheaply made (yet expensive) crap thay don't need, and which will inevitably end up in a landfill... but...
And I would welcome a downward trend in non-luxury items also. Namely all the plastic crap in the hyaku-en shops.