The doubling of gold prices in two years, along with US tariffs and a weaker dollar, have made it harder to defend gross margins for Tiffany owner LVMH and others in the high-end goods industry.
Tiffany is known for its modern style fine jewellery
“Each of these [factors] alone could be offset by the high-end branded jewellery players and watchmakers but all together, it becomes very difficult” to keep profit margins from being eroded, said Jon Cox, head of Swiss equities at Kepler Cheuvreux. Gold surged above $4,000 an ounce to a record last week as investors sought safety due to economic and geopolitical uncertainty and expectations of further US interest rate cuts.
“There is bound to be margin pressure,” Cox added, noting brands would likely implement price hikes to shoppers gradually. LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury conglomerate, is expected to report flat third-quarter sales when it reports on Tuesday, with a 4% decline in fashion and leather goods and 1% growth in watches and jewellery, according to a VisibleAlpha consensus figure cited by HSBC.
Jewellery brands, including LVMH’s Tiffany and Bulgari, Richemont’s Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Kering’s Boucheron have recently outperformed stablemates focusing on fashion. At LVMH, first-half sales in watches and jewellery were flat and profit sank 13%. Its fashion and leather goods division, which includes Louis Vuitton and Dior, saw profit plummet 18% on a sales drop of 7%.
Watches and jewellery make up over 12% of LVMH sales, and fashion about half of group sales. Tiffany and Bulgari are among LVMH’s top five brands in terms of annual earnings, according to estimates from HSBC.
Despite gold’s sharp rally, the metal represents a small share of input costs for luxury jewellery brands, or just 10% of jewellery sales on average, according to Manuel Lang, equity analyst, consumer goods at Vontobel. That percentage drops to between 5% and 8% for designer brands at the very high end, said Bernstein analyst Luca Solca.
So, “even a modest retail price increase could take care of material gold price increases,” said Solca. As brands seek to ease pressure on margins, they would need to be cautious about passing on price increases to shoppers so as not to erode demand, other analysts said.
For Swiss-listed Richemont, which focuses more on jewellery than rivals and has outpaced peers, that has not translated to upgrades to earnings forecasts due to factors like currency rates and gold prices, which were “completely out of their control,” said Zuzanna Pusz, analyst with UBS.
The Calida Group is strengthening its Board of Directors. This move aims to broaden the Board’s expertise in retail and the textile industry and to reinforce the Group’s strategic direction. The focus is on increasing efficiency in product development and brand communications for Calida and Aubade.
Chairman of the Board of Directors Felix Sulzberger regards the strengthening of the Board as a major opportunity to provide fresh impetus. – CALIDA GROUP
With this in mind, the Board of Directors intends to propose to the shareholders of the Swiss lingerie company at the Annual General Meeting on April 15, 2026 the election of Caroline Forster and Nicole Loeb as additional members.
Caroline Forster is an experienced leader and, since 2008, has served as co-CEO of the St. Gallen-based Forster Group, which operates globally. The family-owned company, with around 850 employees, produces embroidery for haute couture, prêt-à-porter, interiors, and lingerie, as well as technical textiles. She brings many years of leadership experience in both operational and strategic roles and has held various board and industry positions since 2007. She was also a member of the Executive Committee of economiesuisse until the end of 2024.
Nicole Loeb is an experienced entrepreneur and a prominent leader in Swiss retail. Since 2005, as delegate of the Board of Directors of Loeb Holding and chair of the Board of Directors of Loeb AG, she has shaped the strategic development of the long-established, independent Swiss retail company headquartered in Bern. She holds a degree in textile business management and is also active in key industry and business organisations, including as a board member of the Swiss Retail Federation and on the regional economic advisory board of the Swiss National Bank.
“I am delighted that, with Caroline Forster and Nicole Loeb, we can propose two renowned and successful entrepreneurs and leaders for election to the Board of Directors. Thanks to their proven experience in the textile industry and retail, they will provide valuable impetus for the strategic development of the Calida Group. I am convinced that, drawing on insights from their own family businesses, they will help shape our Group’s future strategic direction in a lasting way,” said Felix Sulzberger, chairman of the Board of Directors.
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Prada will make a limited-edition collection of sandals in India inspired by the country’s traditional footwear, selling each pair at around 800 euros ($930), Prada senior executive Lorenzo Bertelli told Reuters, turning a backlash over cultural appropriation into a collaboration with Indian artisans.
The Italian luxury group plans to make 2,000 pairs of the sandals in the regions of Maharashtra and Karnataka under a deal with two state-backed bodies, blending local Indian craftsmanship with Italian technology and know-how.
“We’ll mix the original manufacturer’s standard capabilities with our manufacturing techniques,” Bertelli, who is chief marketing officer and head of corporate social responsibility, told Reuters in an interview. The collection will go on sale in February 2026 across 40 Prada stores worldwide and online, the company said. Prada faced criticism six months ago after showing sandals resembling 12th-century Indian footwear, known as Kolhapuri chappals, at a Milan show. Photos went viral, prompting outrage from Indian artisans and politicians. Prada later admitted its design drew from ancient Indian styles and began talks with artisan groups for collaboration.
It has now signed an agreement with Sant Rohidas Leather Industries and Charmakar Development Corporation (LIDCOM) and Dr Babu Jagjivan Ram Leather Industries Development Corporation (LIDKAR), which promote India’s leather heritage. “We want to be a multiplier of awareness for these chappals,” said Bertelli, who is the eldest son of Prada founders Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli.
A three-year partnership, whose details are still being finalised, will be set up to train local artisans. The initiative will include training programmes in India and opportunities to spend short periods at Prada’s Academy in Italy.
Chappals originated in Maharashtra and Karnataka and are handcrafted by people from marginalised communities. Artisans hope the collaboration will raise incomes, attract younger generations to the trade and preserve heritage threatened by cheap imitations and declining demand.
“Once Prada endorses this craft as a luxury product, definitely the domino effect will work and result in increasing demand for the craft,” said Prerna Deshbhratar, LIDCOM managing director. Bertelli said the project and training programme would cost “several million euros”, adding that artisans would be fairly remunerated.
Bertelli said Prada, which opened its first beauty store in Delhi this year, has no plans for new retail clothing shops next year or factories in India. “We have not planned yet any store openings in India, but it’s something that we are strongly taking into consideration,” he said, adding that this could come in three to five years.
The luxury goods market in India was valued at around $7 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach about $30 billion by 2030, according to Deloitte, as economic growth accelerates to 7% this year and disposable income among the middle and upper classes rises. The market, however, is dwarfed by China, which generated about 350 billion yuan ($49.56 billion) in value in 2024, according to Bain.
Most global brands have entered India through partnerships with large conglomerates like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance group and Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Aditya Birla Group. Bertelli said that Prada would prefer to enter the country on its own, even if it took longer, describing India as “the real potential new market.”
London-based Save Your Wardrobe (SYW) and France’s Fairly Made are joining forces to deliver what they say will be “Europe’s most advanced end-to-end circularity infrastructure”.
Save Your Wardrobe
SYW operates an AI-powered wardrobe management app while Fairly Made has developed a solution for measuring the environmental impact of products. Now they’ve announced a “strategic partnership designed to help brands meet Europe’s next generation of sustainability expectations”.
They said that “as new regulations reshape how products are designed, managed, and cared for- from eco-design and digital product passports to France’s Bonus Réparation and evolving EPR requirements, brands need a connected view of impact across the full lifecycle. This partnership brings together two complementary strengths that enable exactly that”.
As part of the link-up, SYW “plans to deliver the infrastructure powering aftersales excellence, including diagnostics, repairability scoring, automation, and nationwide repair operations”. Meanwhile, Fairly Made will support this with “upstream capabilities across supply-chain traceability, multi-criteria impact measurement, and digital product passport readiness”.
The plan is that they will offer enterprise brands a “360° circularity solution that supports eco-design, compliance, and measurable lifecycle extension”.
They said their goal is to help brands “move toward a future where circularity is not an ambition, but a connected, measurable, and scalable reality”.
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