Reports of the death of luxury have been greatly exaggerated, according to Dr Scilla Huang Sun, fund manager of Julius Baer’s luxury brands fund. “As long as there are human beings who are vain there will always be demand for luxury,” she says.

But the luxury goods industry is having to make painful adjustments nevertheless. This has nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with cold economic reality. "The notion the luxury goods market is less cyclical than the broader economy has been exploded over the past year," says Sun.