The Business of Fashion

Q&A: Is the Asian Luxury explosion on the rocks?

This month's Monocle magazine plays "Spot the Shopper" at one of China's cavernous new luxury malls. Have a look -- there's barely a shopper in sight. We've been hearing similar reports about luxury malls and stores in Russia, and the (admittedly anecdotal) fashion grapevine says that luxury stores in India are struggling as well. Add this to the economic uncertainty sweeping through the global economy and it's enough to step back  and wonder: is this whole Asian luxury explosion overstated?

Not according to Radha Chadha, a leading expert on Asia's luxury boom and co-author of the book The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia's Love Affair With Luxury. Turns out that some companies and luxury projects are just not well conceived to begin with, and these ones are likely to fail. However, other players are scoring major successes in Asia, especially those that have been present in the region for some time.

We reached Radha Chadha in her Hong Kong offices to better understand the impact of the global economic downturn on the luxury boom in China and India and to get Radha's views on which brands are best positioned to dominate the market there.

BoF Recommends: Monocle, a magazine for the 21st century

Earlier this year, Tyler Brûlé, famous for launching Wallpaper* magazine and for his now defunct Fast Lane column in the weekend Financial Times, launched Monocle magazine, a self-described briefing on global affairs, business, culture and design.

In the Brûlé days, Wallpaper* was a large format glossy magazine with a black logo printed on a white cover, with plenty of photos and little text. While it was pretty to look at, you could get through the magazine in less than 20 minutes of page-turning, and the website offered nothing extra -- in fact, it was pretty much an empty shell.

Monocle couldn't be more different. It is a smaller format magazine with a white logo printed on a black cover and plenty of text printed on matte (almost dull) paper. The focus is on the written content, which is rich, varied and quirky. The magazine did get off to a slightly slow start, but it has picked up steam over the past few issues and is beginning to find its voice. The business content is a bit random (an interview in Issue 01 with the CEO of Lego left me underwhelmed, for example) but the fashion content while light, is spot on.