reduced Vuitton bling rich Russia Discreet Go
When the Soviet Union collapsed 22 years ago, the Russian proletarian women throw themselves quickly outdated habit for sequins as ultra-tight sequined dresses and towering heels. Mira Duma is any of it.
"With great logos and bright would be the last thing I buy and wear," Duma said a Maven style 28 years and a former editor of the local edition of Bazaar "magazine Harper today., There is absolutely vulgar fad."
Duma, the daughter of former deputy Vasily Duma, is emblematic of a new generation of Russians went for the importance of haute couture and flashy expensive discrete and expensive.
Accelerates The development of the tastes, of the turnover of $ 10,000 Hermes handbags and $ 5,000 Chanel dresses in the former communist countries, stimulates brands such as Prada and Louis Vuitton, order to open more stores. Sales outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg and online sophistication grows in the middle class in Russia, reports researchers Planet Retail.
Sales of luxury goods in Russia expanded by 6 percent to $ 8.8 billion last year from 4.6 percent in 2011 to fight against a decline of 20 percent between 2007 and 2009 help to Euro Monitor International Plc. This is slower than 18 percent growth in luxury in China in 2012, it is much better than in Western Europe, where sales fell 1 percent last year while the debt crisis taxed domestic spending, the researchers estimate.
"What we're seeing now is a return" to the Russian demand for luxury goods, Hermes said (RMS) SCA International Deputy Managing Director Patrick Albaladejo.
God-given talent
European brands such as Vuitton has already begun reduction of the bling, such as they who they know better with indigenous Russian labels such as Vika Gazinskaya, Alexander Terekhov and Uliana Sergeenko, what customers want believe, to fight. The latest collection of dresses Terekhov has simple silk flowers, sewing spring Sergeenko covered more meat than it showed.
Sales Gazinskaya collections of 1,500 euros ($ 1,980) dresses have doubled in the past year, as consumers "in search of something else," said the 24-year-old designer. With 25 points of sale, including Paris, New York and Hong Kong, she said Gazinskaya finance for investors to seek development.
"There is no limit really," she said by phone from Venice, Italy, where she lay in the Biennale art exhibition. "God gave me the talent."
Discretion was not always in fashion with the Russians. Poor animal print dresses and brightly logoed luggage were de rigueur in the 1990s as a handful of wealthy the excesses of the Revolution were revived again by 1917, according to Alla Verber, Fashion Director at Tsum department store in Moscow.
Girls Gangster
Then, accompanied by a bright jacket cutthroat girl "a new feature, a Russian gangster man was kind," she said. "Well, tastes have changed."
Kering SA (KER) 's Gucci is the biggest luxury brand in Russia in 2011 with a turnover of 6.74 billion rubles ($ 208.6 million) to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC)' s Donna Karan and Louis Vuitton, says euro monitor. Hermes and Prada rounded out the top five, according to the researchers.
The transition to a less visible consumption is a well-known cycle, said Claudia D'Arpizio, a partner at Bain & Co. consultant new buyers in the fast-growing markets such as China and the Middle East "as the display of state and buy more obvious elements "like bags and watches with logo inlay, she said." More buyers established focus on in-the-know, what brands have character, and the value of more subtle materials and craftsmanship. "
Estimated consistency
Of course, the flash can still sell in Russia, when it is quite expensive. Versace scarce, a manufacturer of $ 2.795 cocktail dresses said Russian customers back just because he does not change his style. "The Russian market seems to appreciate our consistency," Versace said by e-mail.
While Russians are still a big part of their spending on luxury goods abroad, through the prices as much as 50 percent cheaper brands in the country grows attracted to the middle class s' expands to Bain. Invite surfaces specializes in the sale of luxury goods in the country has more than 1.65 million square meters quadrupled in the last ten years, Fashion Consulting Group estimates with seat in Moscow. Disposable incomes have increased tenfold to 22,800 rubles since 2000, government data show that the number of millionaire households increased from 158,000 to 180,000 in 2011, the Boston Consulting Group estimates.
"Russia is a great place to be," said Douglas Mandel, CEO of Christian Dior Couture in the country. The French label has four stores in Russia, including one in 2012, opened in GUM near Red Square in Moscow.
Moscow shops
Last year, Chanel, Prada, Miu Miu and Donna Karan were among the fashion houses to open or renovate stores in Moscow. Gucci, doubled its sales in Russia since 2008, bought, announces its distribution.
Here these and other luxury brands follow a strategy that they have used in other markets as they mature. You try directly the relationship with consumers as Yulia Bushueva, CEO of Arbat Capital in Moscow and respond quickly to their needs.
For Bushueva at least, as it says, does, it is easier for them, the kind of clothes they find you.
"When I go to Harrods and Harvey Nichols in London, I do not see the things that inspire me," Bushueva said. "In Moscow, I do."