Luxury Prices Fell Four Times Harder Than Budget

1 September 2026

Split the August index by price segment and one pattern dominates:

Segment	Index	August
Luxury	77.98	−10.23%
Premium	79.58	−6.28%
Mid	81.57	−4.47%
Budget	97.50	−2.72%

The dearer the segment, the harder it fell. Luxury dropped roughly four times as much as budget.

The gap since March is wider still:

• Luxury at 77.98 — 22% below March
• Budget at 97.50 — just 2.5% below

What it means: cheap stock is holding its price. There is little room to cut it, and it is selling. Expensive stock is not selling, so it is being cut repeatedly. Once luxury sits 22% below where it started, that is no longer a sale — it is the new real price.

For shoppers: if you are buying an expensive formal or bridal outfit, this is the best window of the year so far. At the budget end there is nothing to wait for — those prices have barely moved.

A necessary caveat: Sana Safinaz (-12.86%) and Bonanza Satrangi (-9.94%) fell in August almost entirely because of our own correction, not the market. On 23 August we found both brands' prices were reaching us in a foreign market's currency; fixing that dropped their figures by very close to the same factor. Between them they are 14,393 of the 67,659 matched products — 21% of the sample. Neither brand is quoted in any August brand-level claim.

Index · Luxury vs budget

Data: TrendCompare 22-brand hourly tracker. The PFPI matches products present in two consecutive months and chains the median price ratio from March 2026 = 100. Stock figures count only products confirmed on the brand's own site within 7 days. Index · methodology.

🐦 X: #LuxuryFashion · @Trendcompare