Fat and fashionable

Even as people are sounding the death knell for fashion magazines, here's news that business is still booming for top guns like Vogue. And it's all thanks to luxury brands. An article in Guardian says:

Luxury goods, once the preserve of the rich and famous, seem to be everywhere. Confirmation that the premium product market is booming and reaching more shoppers than ever before comes next week in the bumper edition of fashion bible Vogue.

The October edition out on Monday is the biggest for almost two decades. Weighing in at more than a bag of sugar - 1.2kg - the latest tome will have 462 pages, 306 of them adverts.

But, of course, everything is bigger in America, and the US September edition of Vogue is the thickest ever at 840 pages. Seven out of every eight pages are adverts and the magazine weighs more than 2kg.

Oblivious to the financial market turmoil that dominates the headlines, the splurgers on both sides of the Atlantic show no sign of pausing for breath. And with consumer demand for luxury goods booming, premium glossies such as Vogue are enjoying the kind of advertising and circulation that other magazines can only dream about.

The article says this rise in high-end advertisers is thanks to three factors. First, relatively affordable products like accessories are being put out in the market, which has driven the surge in the number of people who can own luxury articles like handbags, shoes, sunglasses, perfumes, etc.

Brand-hungry shoppers in markets like China and India are the second big drivers. China and India - where Vogue is launched this month - have provided the luxury goods groups with new armies of consumers eager to buy western labels.

Finally, there's the "ultra-high net worth" consumer. Partly in reaction to the first group of shoppers, the super-rich are after the most exclusive items they can get. With the term "luxury" losing its cachet as it reaches mass audiences, the billionaires want a new class of treat. The prices for those products drive the overall market up further. Think Bugatti Veyron, £1.2m, the world's fastest road car, or a GoldVish diamond-encrusted mobile phone for £15,000.

"It's a new category with almost unimaginable prices. But demand is still there and the waiting lists are long," says luxury goods specialist Marc Cohen. "It's almost a case of 'build it and they will come', someone will almost always pay for it."

And while advertising sales will inevitably slump in the new year and the turbulence in financial markets does spark a global economic downturn, experts believe there will still be plenty of shoppers to support the luxury goods market. Mark Tungate, author of the books Fashion Brands and Adland, says: "If you are a real fashionista you'll just cut in other areas."

I just had to LOL@that!