A luxurious ‘phobia’ is gripping these customers. It’s a pink flag for luxurious manufacturers like Chanel and Gucci. | Invesloan.com

For a decade, the global luxury industry operated on a simple axiom: As China goes, so goes the bottom line. But, as we’ve moved into 2026, that engine of aspirational spending hasn’t just slowed; it has fundamentally recalibrated.

In the high-end shopping districts of Shanghai’s Jing’an and Xintiandi, the queues that once snaked around Louis Vuitton and Chanel have thinned.