Bad times for luxury goods

On Tuesday, the day after the economy sputtered, wheezed, and finally got an official diagnosis from economists, Oscar de la Renta CEO Alex Bolen wasn't exactly dancing the watusi, but he wasn't weeping into his father-in-law's ostrich feather eveningwear either.

"I think we're concerned, but, knock on wood, our business has kept up pretty well," he explained on the phone from his office in New York. "Up until September, our business was very good. In October, it came to a screeching halt, but November started coming back."

There's another reason Oscar de la Renta may weather the current recession better than some of its luxury competitors. The privately held company has stayed focused on its ready-to-wear line of clothing, while brands such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès have grown thanks to brand-crazed shoppers who crave Vuitton logos on their purses or the Gucci name spelled out in rhinestones on the sides of their sunglasses. It's those logo-obsessed shoppers who'll most likely disappear as the economy worsens.

"From what I hear from some of our wholesale accounts, the aspirational customer who buys the occasional handbag or pair of shoes from our competitors is probably not making those purchases now," Bolen says.

But there's another reason ladies may not be saving their pennies for luxury goods any longer. In addition to an economy that has more ailments than Liz Taylor, retail analysts have identified a new trend called "luxury fatigue." It seems that after 15 years of chasing "it" handbags and drooling over the perfect Yves Saint Laurent shoe, women have grown tired of trying to keep up with the Olsen twins.

"Consumers are burned out on the new 'it' bag or shoe because it just conveys the notion that you are following the crowd as opposed to expressing your own individual style," says trend analyst Tom Julian, president of the Tom Julian Group. "There is also a sentiment that coveted goods have become less special and unique. The consumer attitude is more akin to 'I don't need that at this time.' "

Luxury fatigue has been in the air for a few months now, but last month at a Luxury Briefing conference in London, former Morgan Stanley luxury analyst Claire Kent warned that the handbag bubble will soon be bursting. Cover your ears, Sarah Jessica Parker. This is going to hurt more than the time your television doppelgänger got dumped by the guy from "Office Space."

"An 'it' handbag will become an embarrassment - a clear sign that you don't have your own view of fashion," Women's Wear Daily quoted Kent as saying at the London conference.

This is good news for my friends who have been considering second mortgages to get their hands on a Birkin bag, but bad news for the ladies in New York City who have escorted me into unseemly back alleys to show me their selection of faux Burberry and Chanel purses. If no one is buying status handbags, does that mean all of those black market retailers will also be out of a job? Talk about trickle down.

One person who doesn't appear to be particularly surprised or upset by this turn of events is Dana Thomas, the author of "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster." In her book, Thomas, the former Paris fashion writer for Newsweek, traced how luxury brands evolved from exclusive ateliers to publicly traded powerhouses.

"That's one of the reasons why I wrote the book," she explains from her home in Paris. "I found that this business had become so soulless and the luxury market is so over-saturated. It was just about marketing and profit. The product no longer reflected anything about the company, it just became something to stamp a logo on."

Thomas, a sharp commentator with a no-nonsense outlook on the fashion industry, says luxury fatigue is now entering warp speed because of a flat-line economy in which conspicuous consumption is looking downright garish, and a green movement that is all about simplifying rather than playing show pony.

"It's the antithesis of everything that's green and good," Thomas says. "It's all about excess, about things you don't need. So I think as people become more environmentally aware, they're questioning everything around them - like logo monogrammed handbags by the dozen, bottles of perfume, and sunglasses with someone else's name on them."

So, for all of you ladies who have been waiting to get your hands on a Vuitton purse or a pair of Chanel sunglasses, your time may be coming. If luxury fatigue hits full Epstein-Barr virus mode as predicted, and your stylish sisters start emptying their closets, these goods could soon find their way to a Salvation Army near you.