“As the models floated down the runway here Sunday at the Louis Vuitton show, spectators could not miss the one accessory accompanying every costume. A tiny satchel. A big valise with gold trim and metal studs. A pouch with leather ruffles. Even the models in bathing suits carried pocketbooks,” writes Tracie Rozhon in today’s New York Times.

“Vuitton’s presentation of handbags was unrelenting, but most of the biggest names in luxury fashion, including Christian Dior, Chanel and Saint Laurent, were hoping for their own big hit — the one purse or watch or pair of shoes that would excite the buying public as it awakens from its lethargy of the last two years.”

“At last, analysts say, a turnaround has begun for the $63 billion global market in luxury goods. Tourism is beginning to recover; pent-up demand is beginning to be unleashed. And during the month of runway shows for spring 2004 fashions that began in New York, continued in Milan and will end in Paris on Tuesday, the big luxury brands were all trying to get out in front, to grab the spotlight with the most irresistible new accessory.”

” ‘The stakes for this season’s big bag are very high,’ Domenico De Sole, chief executive of the Gucci Group, said Saturday. ‘Whoever gets the bag gets the fashion momentum.’

“At Gucci, clothing contributes only 30 percent of income — the rest is accessories. Vuitton, thanks to leather goods, contributes 60 percent of the operating profit of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s No. 1 luxury company — so it is perhaps not surprising that the house prepared 300 sample bags for its Sunday show. At the Chanel show, meanwhile, guests laughed as models turned their wrists to show off their watches.”

“The big luxury companies — hunter-gatherers of brands like Gucci, Dior, Boucheron and Bottega Veneta — as well as luxury emporiums like Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman have shown significant sales increases in the last two months, according to executives. They predict that when results from the last quarter are released this week, the increases over a year ago will be 10 to 20 percent for many companies.”

“Gucci was one of the brands hit the hardest in the global economy of the last two year. But in boutiques in the United States, Europe and Japan, sales in September increased by more than 10 percent over September 2002, according to Mr. De Sole.”

” ‘The luxury market is clearly on a rebound,’ said Christian Oddone, an analyst who specializes in luxury products for the Actinvest Group in London. ‘The market is already assuming a full recovery five or six months from now, and stock prices have risen accordingly: the price of Bulgari, for instance, has doubled. Tiffany, too, has risen. And LVMH. After two years in which everything that could happen did happen, we’re looking toward a more stable environment.’ “