Japan used to be a place where luxury products were considered mass market. That was how lofty the country’s economy had been. Such is no longer the case because Japan equally suffers from the global economic meltdown, pulling along with it the Japanese propensity for luxury goods.
In Japan today, retail stores are the ones enjoying much traffic while luxury boutiques are in the proverbial dry spell. Revenues are now going the way of retail shops that were once generally snubbed by luxury slaves. ‘Now, the Japanese luxury market, worth $15 billion to $20 billion, has been among the hardest hit by the global economic crisis.’
‘Sales at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, makers of what has long been Japan’s favorite handbag, plunged 20 percent in the first six months of 2009. In December, as the global economic crisis unfolded, Louis Vuitton canceled plans for what would have been a fancy new Tokyo store.’ It seems that the Japanese have now learned thrift shopping.
The erstwhile unheard of secondhand clothing stores are now being frequented by a new generation of Japanese fashionista who, though still hung up on consumer materialism, are now left with no choice but to scale down the cost of such materialism.
Encouraging the attitude of thrift are such conditions as unemployment which is at a record high of 5.7 percent, a troubled government pension system, and a ballooning government debt. The Japanese are now wont to save and save more.
