China is a big market when it comes to personal luxury goods (PLG). Chinese nationals accounted for about one-third of all PLG purchases in 2017. It has grown to this size from virtually zero in 2000.

Personal luxury goods are items like clothing, footwear, bags and accessories, cosmetics, fragrances, jewelry, watches, and so on. China’s peculiar political history, a fractured cultural legacy and the present political make-up has created a lot of vacuum spots that brands, in particular luxury brands, fill in. PLG is regarded as the core of the core of the luxury marketplace. Personal luxury goods touch the core of the core of the consumer’s identity.

Today social media adds a totally new set of demands on the demonstrations of who a person is. Brands are a large part of that equation. Personal luxury goods are an exact fit for this. Niche luxury brands are particularly sought after, to create a personal signature style.

China’s economic growth has helped pull large swathes of the population out of poverty in the last 20-odd years. The upward social movement has been relentless and fast. So there is also a huge middle class that has emerged and is still emerging.