The windows at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York are usually chock full of the latest designer collections and It bags, but they were blacked out last month. All shoppers could see was a small sign which read “CREATIVE INSTALLATION IN PROGRESS”. Whoever wrote that message has a dark sense of humour.
The signs were posted just as America’s biggest luxury department store chain filed for protection from bankruptcy. Saks’s desperate move is the latest evidence that the $500billion luxury fashion industry is facing a spring/summer of discontent — following 12-18 months during which balance sheets at many of the biggest retailers and maisons had already moved from fashionably black into the red.
