Recession? Smecession says Vera Wang

Vera Wang is apparently not as worried as the folks at Bill Blass this morning. She acknowledges though times may be rough, for fashion designers, the sky is not necessarily falling. In an interview with Marketwatch Wang says:

“Fashion is an expendable commodity, but it also brings such joy and fantasy and fun to women’s lives. For that reason, fashion will prevail ultimately.”

This optimistic view of the industry may be because Wang is viewing the future through rose colored glasses. Her company is thriving in high end places like Saks and Nordstrom’s and also doing well on the lower end of the spectrum in big box places like Kohl’s. She be the farm everywhere and did well as a result. She’s also looking at opening Vera Wang stores at a location near you adding

“There’s no question that many people in fashion have felt the repercussions of the recession. I’m fairly thorough about looking at the sell- through. I feel fairly optimistic that by the time they get done, hopefully the economy will be on the rebound.”

Is Wang right or are we going to watch the fashion industry go into a collective tailspin with few surviving what is looking like a lengthier economic downturn than originally predicted? Survey says: Wang is right. Economic downturns rarely affect luxury fashion designers and the high end folks because…rich people are rich. So when an economic downturn usually occurs the folks that scale back on their spending end up not buying that pair of heels on discount. But Vera Wang rarely sells discount (unless you count Kohl’s) and even then the designer with the vowel at the end of their name crowd feels a recession as much as an elephant feels a mosquito bite.

online: VeraWang.com