经济学人下载:亮丽一族 The glossy posse

Catwalks in the West, action in the East
猫步走西方，利润在东边

THE shows are almost over. Next week the glossy posse, bleached weary from their month’s sprint to the world’s four fashion capitals—New York, London, Milan and finally Paris—will forsake the bright plumage of the catwalks for the mundane headaches of balance-sheets and supply chains.

表演快要结束了。下周那些时装业者终于可以脱下伸展台上的亮丽羽毛，开始专注于更平凡的账本和货源问题了。一个月内穿梭于世界四大时装之都－纽约，伦敦，米兰，最后巴黎把他们累得脸色发白。

Everyone now knows what will be in discerning wardrobes next spring: blocks of colour, bold prints and dainty “lingerie for feet” (formerly known as nice shoes). But the fashion industry’s financial future is much murkier. A confusion of trends preoccupies the major brands: the rapid shift east of their customer base, a generational switch, as high earners get younger, and the challenge of making luxurious clothing accessible to new markets, including digital ones, while retaining the sense of exclusivity that makes people want to pay for them in the first place.

大家现在都知道明年春天潮流衣柜里面会有哪些元素了：大块色彩，大胆的图案和小巧玲珑的“足之内衣”（原名：漂亮鞋子）。但是相比之下未来时装业的财务走向要混浊得多。几大品牌注意力都被大量混乱的趋势占据了：顾客群的迅速东移，富豪年轻化带来的更新换代，再加上要将奢侈时装引入新市场，包括数字市场的同时又要保留一种独特感，照顾那些因为难得才付钱购买的顾客，这可不容易。

First the good news. Luxury brands are coping well despite global economic gloom. This is because the number of “extreme net-worth individuals” (industry jargon for people with so much money that an $8,000 handbag seems a bargain) keeps growing, especially in Asia. Claudia D’Arpizio of Bain & Co, a consultancy, predicts sales will grow by 8% this year, to