The gold market offers a snapshot of the wider trends in the luxury market. The Italian jewellery sector, for decades a stronghold of the luxury industry, saw consumption of the metal fall last year to just 116 tonnes, a fifth of the levels seen in the boom years of the late 1990s.
But in China, meanwhile, demand for gold from the jewellery sector surged 20 per cent year-on-year, to hit a record 400 tonnes.
The market for platinum, palladium, diamonds, silk and other commodities used in the luxury industry present similar trends, with demand increasing rapidly in Asia, while consumption in the west at best flattens and, at worse, falls off a cliff.
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