Prada's CEO refused the word "aspirational" on camera. The replacement defines the customer by time, and Miu Miu is the proof.

Via Montenapoleone stopped getting more expensive. It also became the most contested piece of ground in the industry. Only the second one matters.

Chanel reports its results once a year, in May. In August, the market learned its first half anyway.

The scarcest thing Chanel shipped this half was information. A house that publishes once a year owned a season without saying a word.

In the quarter to 30 June, one category grew at every group that reports it separately. It was not the category with the creative directors.

The houses crossing the cycle best protected the conditions that produce desire: scarcity, distance, interval. The divergence is philosophical before it is financial.

When the sector's most disciplined communicators start selling proximity, it is not a slip. It is a channel.

Luxury's loyalty model was built on a generation that no longer exists. Occupation is no longer available. Rechoice is.

Prada answered a question about desire with a forecast about arithmetic. Miu Miu's rate was retired and replaced by another rate.

The Hermès verdict is not in the margin line, it is in the cash. Working capital refused to build while the workshops multiplied.

Hermès gave back 40 basis points of margin this half. It did not lose them. It spent them.

A pulse, not a turn. Gucci narrowed through fewer doors, and the margin that met it was still built from cost.

Burberry earned back its price and not yet the benefit of the doubt. The gap is the margin story the house leaves untold.

Discipline is a finite lever and LVMH spent it well this half. What it cannot do is buy back the desire that leather goods stopped selling.

Luxury's scarcest asset has always been distance. This summer, its executives began spending it, deliberately.