Category Archives: Luxury goods sector

Burberry profits slump by 40% as demand for luxury goods slows

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British fashion retailer hit by drop in sales in Asia and Americas, and expects challenging first half of 2025

Burberry’s profits have slumped by 40% in a year amid a wider slowdown in demand for luxury goods that has pushed down sales in Asia and the Americas.

The high-end UK fashion retailer posted a pre-tax profit of £383m for the year up to 30 March in its preliminary results on Wednesday, a 40% drop on the £634m in the previous 12 months. Global sales fell by 8% in the second half of the year.

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Luxury clothing brand Matchesfashion to enter administration

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New owner Frasers Group decides it is unwilling to fund turnaround

The luxury clothing retailer Matchesfashion is to enter administration after its new owner, Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, said it was not willing to fund a turnaround.

Matches was acquired by Frasers just three months ago for £52m in cash from private equity firm Apax Partners but the business has “consistently missed its business plan targets” and made losses, Frasers said.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger held at Munich airport over luxury watch

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Customs officials reportedly charge actor €35,000 after alleged failure to declare item intended for climate charity auction

Arnold Schwarzenegger was briefly held by customs officers at Munich airport on Wednesday after allegedly failing to declare a €26,000 (£22,000) Audemars Piguet watch the Terminator star was planning to sell at an auction in aid of his climate crisis charity.

The Austrian-born actor and former governor of California, 76, was stopped at the airport for about three hours upon arrival from Los Angeles, according to the German tabloid Bild, which quoted customs officials.

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Burberry issues profit warning as Christmas shoppers shun pricey trenchcoats

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British brand affected by continued slowdown in luxury demand during cost of living crisis

Burberry has warned that annual profits will be sharply lower than previously expected after consumers left its expensive trenchcoats, bags and scarves off their Christmas shopping lists.

The luxury British brand said trading had been affected by a continued slowdown in luxury demand after rises in the cost of living and increases to interest rates globally.

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Armed robbers escape with up to €15m in jewellery from Piaget store in Paris

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Investigation under way after theft at Swiss luxury watch shop on Rue de la Paix in high-end Place Vendôme area

Armed robbers have raided a store of the luxury Swiss watch brand Piaget in central Paris, escaping with between €10m to €15m ( £8.5m to 12.8m) worth of jewellery, the Paris prosecutors office said.

The robbery took place around lunchtime on Tuesday at the store on the Rue de la Paix in the high-end Place Vendôme area, home to several jewellers, watchmakers and luxury brands. The area has seen a spate of armed robberies in recent years.

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Rush for bags and scarves helps Burberry offset China Covid slump

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British luxury goods firm reports 1% increase in global sales in last quarter of 2022

Burberry offset a plunge in Chinese sales of more than a fifth amid Covid disruption, thanks to the return of tourists to Europe who snapped up bags, scarves and trenchcoats in the run-up to Christmas.

The British luxury goods firm reported a 1% increase in global sales in the three months to the end of December, below its 2% target and sharply down compared with the 11% growth reported in the previous quarter.

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Luxury goods boom in Britain as the young, rich and mortgage-free buck the recession

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Rich kids of Insta use strong dollar to fuel sales of high-end brands such as Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Gucci

They’re young, rich and mortgage-free, and the scions of the 1% are having a roaring twenties.

Despite the economic gloom currently shrouding the UK and many other western countries, sales of luxury brands have been booming and growing numbers of buyers are young adults.

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Rare ‘fancy vivid pink’ diamond sells for £52m in Hong Kong auction

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Williamson Pink Star sets world record highest price per carat for a diamond sold at auction

An extremely rare “fancy vivid pink” diamond has sold for 453m Hong Kong dollars (£52m) – more than double its estimated price – and set a world record for the highest price per carat for a diamond sold at auction.

The 11.15-carat Williamson Pink Star diamond, which is named after another pink diamond given to Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding gift, was sold to an undisclosed buyer at auction by Sotheby’s Hong Kong on Friday.

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Pink diamond expected to fetch more than £20m at Hong Kong auction

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Williamson Pink Star is second largest ‘fancy vivid pink’ diamond to ever appear at auction

The second largest, internally flawless “fancy vivid pink” diamond ever to appear at auction is expected to sell for more than £20m when it goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on Friday.

The 11.15-carat, cushion-shaped diamond, known as the Williamson Pink Star, is named after two other huge pink diamonds: the 59.60-carat, mixed-cut, oval Pink Star diamond that sold for a record $71.2m at auction in 2017, and the Williamson stone, a 23.60-carat diamond given to the late Queen Elizabeth II as a wedding gift by the Canadian geologist and ardent royalist John Thorburn Williamson in 1947.

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Franca Fendi, inheritor of Italian fashion house, dies aged 87

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Fendi and her sisters took luxury brand to new creative heights by bringing in Karl Lagerfeld in 1960s

Franca Fendi, one of the five sisters who inherited a small Roman leather goods workshop and together transformed it into a luxury fashion house, has died in Rome on Monday. She was 87.

Born in 1935, she participated from a young age in the management of the company that from the 1960s onwards, under the guidance of the sisters, became a global luxury powerhouse famed for its reimagining of the classic fur coat.

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Burberry sales fall 35% in China on back of Covid lockdowns

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Lola handbag range and signature trenchcoat give luxury fashion retailer boost elsewhere

Burberry has reported sales growth of only 1% in its latest financial quarter because of the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns in China, while sales were boosted elsewhere by its Lola handbag range and signature trenchcoat.

The luxury fashion retailer said sales fell 35% in mainland China because of restrictions and store closures to contain the latest outbreak of the coronavirus, while sales grew 16% across the rest of the world in the 13 weeks to 2 July.

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Superyacht sales surge prompts fresh calls for curbs on their emissions

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Campaigners say a superyacht can produce 1,500 times more carbon than a typical family car, and the polluters should pay

The rising fortunes of the world’s billionaires during the pandemic helped fuel a record £5.3bn in superyacht sales last year, prompting calls for new curbs on their emissions.

New figures reveal that 887 superyachts were sold in 2021, an increase of more than 75% compared with the previous year. Yachting brokers say some of the demand has been from wealthy clients seeking a secure refuge from the pandemic.

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Jewellery worth €10m stolen in heist at Bulgari store in Paris

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Two armed robbers are in custody after a police chase, with a hunt under way for remaining suspects

A group of thieves have struck the Bulgari store on the Place Vendôme in Paris, making off with about €10m (£8.6m) in jewellery. They then led police on a high-speed chase during which two of the suspects were captured, sources have told AFP.

Three individuals, wearing sharp suits and armed with guns, robbed the recently revamped boutique on the Place Vendôme in central Paris, where the Ritz hotel is located, shortly before midday on Tuesday, police said.

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It’s this season’s must-have Hermès bag. And it’s made from fungus

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The luxury label is the latest to adopt pioneering technology as designers shift to plant-based fabric. Is this the end of leather?

It’s fair to say that Hermès knows handbags. The luxury fashion house’s Birkin and Kelly bags are among the most expensive ever sold; demand outstrips supply by so much that you can’t even join a waiting list. Acquiring one is a matter of luck and contacts. So when Hermès announced this season’s handbag would be made from plant leather, it marked a new era in designer accessories.

The autumn/winter 2021 Hermès Victoria (prices start from about £3,500 for its previous leather version) will be made from Sylvania, a leather grown from fungus, before being crafted in France into a perfect Hermès handbag.

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Calling all billionaires: here’s how to keep your superyacht Covid-free

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As the rich and famous isolate on the seas, a new catamaran is designed to keep the virus out

It is a problem not many us have to consider: how to ensure your multimillion dollar superyacht remains a coronavirus-free zone despite taking on board crew from around the world.

But for the billionaire owners of floating luxury homes there is now a solution – a very expensive one, naturally. An Australian naval architecture firm is launching a new double-hulled support vessel, in which new crew and guests can isolate while they await coronavirus test results from onboard medical staff.

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Spanish Puig snaps up Charlotte Tilbury makeup empire

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Barcelona-based firm is thought to have fought off bids from Unilever, L’Oréal and Shiseido

The celebrity makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury has handed a control of her namesake makeup and skincare empire to a Spanish fashion and fragrances business in a deal that could have valued the company at up to £1bn just seven years after she started it.

Tilbury, 47, personally owned between half and 75% of the company until signing a deal with the Barcelona-based Puig will likely have handed her a cash payout worth tens of millions of pounds. The Spanish firm also owns brands including Paco Rabanne, Jean Paul Gaultier and Nina Ricci.

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Diamond as big as a tennis ball makes Louis Vuitton debut in Paris

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1,758-carat Sewelô snapped up by luxury brand is world’s second-largest rough diamond

Louis Vuitton has made a splash as it showed off its latest purchase: the world’s second-largest rough diamond.

The LVMH-owned brand, which announced last week that it was the new owner of the 1,758-carat Sewelô, displayed the glinting, blackened stone at its Place Vendôme store in Paris.

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Britons have spent £4bn stockpiling goods in case of no-deal Brexit

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Research suggests one in five people have a food, drinks and medicine hoard worth £380

Britons have spent £4bn stockpiling goods in preparation for a possible no-deal Brexit, new research suggests.

One in five people are already hoarding food, drinks and medicine, spending an extra £380 each, according to a survey by the finance provider Premium Credit. The survey found that about 800,000 people have spent more than £1,000 building up stockpiles before the 31 October Brexit deadline.

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Kylie Jenner celebrates birthday on £1m-a-week superyacht

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Cosmetics billionaire and reality TV star boarded vessel in Italy for 22nd birthday

Kylie Jenner, the Keeping up with the Kardashians reality TV star whose eponymous cosmetics empire has turned her into the world’s youngest billionaire, will this weekend spend more than £1m on a party to celebrate her 22nd birthday onboard a $126m (£104m) superyacht.

Jenner has chartered the 91.5m (300ft) yacht Tranquility, which features a swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, Turkish bath, an “experiential shower”, a cinema and helicopter landing pad, to party in the Mediterranean this weekend.

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Super-rich sabbatical: the boom in luxury long breaks for the 1%

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From shark swims to snow leopard treks, a tailored trip of up to a year is now a must-have

The super-rich are going on sabbatical. It turns out having bucket-loads of money can be stressful, leading some of the world’s richest people to take a break for a month or so, or even a year, to escape the pressure of managing their businesses or personal fortunes.

Tom Barber, the founder of the London-based travel agency Original Travel, said so many super-rich customers had asked his firm to arrange bespoke trips ranging in duration from one to 12 months that his firm was launching a special division dedicated to sabbaticals for the 1%.

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