Luxury Faces a New Global Economic Order, Shaped by the IMF

After a more resilient-than-expected 2025, the war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have triggered a new global energy and logistics shock. In its annual report, the IMF highlights the severity of the situation: global public debt continues to climb towards levels not seen since the aftermath of the Second World War, while interest burdens have risen over three years from around 2% to nearly 3% of global GDP.

For the luxury industry, this environment could have several consequences. The first could be an even stronger polarization of the customer base. Inflation and the impact of higher energy prices are weakening aspirational consumers. Brands targeting ultra-high-net-worth individuals continue to benefit from a greater buffer than those whose growth depends on spending by the upper middle class. This divide has been visible for some time: Morgan Stanley has described a “K-shaped” economy, more favorable to luxury houses with greater exposure to high-income consumers.

The cost of capital is also becoming a factor in determining which luxury players can thrive. Financing costly inventories, opening or renovating a network of stores, securing suppliers or acquiring an independent brand is becoming more expensive. Large groups with strong cash positions and direct control over their production chains are therefore at an advantage. In a market where price increases have already reached their limits (McKinsey estimates that they accounted for more than 80% of luxury growth during the previous expansion phase), growth will therefore have to come increasingly from volumes and market-share gains.

At the same time, the geography of luxury is becoming more unstable. The IMF highlights the accelerated reorganization of global trade since the shift in U.S. trade policy in 2025. Despite tensions, trade volumes increased by nearly 5% last year, driven in particular by technology products, but growth is slowing in 2026 as China rebalances its economy towards domestic consumption.

For European luxury houses, this point is crucial: a China increasingly driven by domestic demand will lead luxury brands to expand their assortments for the domestic market. At the same time, major events organized locally around luxury brands will come at the expense of the traditional model, which relied heavily on Chinese tourists spending in Paris, Milan or London.

The other major shift comes from artificial intelligence. According to the IMF, technology investments associated with AI are estimated to have added around 0.5 percentage points to U.S. growth in 2025, while global private investment could exceed $2 trillion in 2026. For luxury, the effect could cut both ways. On the one hand, rising technology valuations could generate a powerful wealth effect in the United States and create new high-income consumers. But a sharp correction in AI-related stocks would have the opposite effect: the bursting of a financial bubble could cause significant disruption in a market where tech fortunes now account for a substantial share of growth.

Finally, the IMF highlights the rapid rise of digital finance, from stablecoins to asset tokenization. Stablecoins are privately issued digital currencies that can, among other things, enable faster international payments, while tokenization consists of digitally recording ownership of an asset on a secure ledger. Their weight has become considerable, and their use is expanding in cross-border payments and money transfers.

These digital tools raise a specific question for the luxury industry: who will control the value of an object after its first sale? The IMF notes that these technologies are gradually moving from experimentation to commercial deployment. A watch or piece of jewelry equipped with an tamper-proof digital identity could be authenticated and transferred more easily on the secondary market.

For luxury houses, the stakes therefore go beyond combating counterfeiting: the opportunity is potentially to track an object throughout its lifetime, maintain a relationship with successive owners and, in the future, capture part of the value created through its resales. At the same time, greater transparency would make the true residual value of products much more visible, and therefore highlight the difference between brands whose pieces retain their value and those whose products depreciate rapidly.

Taken together, all these elements contained in the IMF’s annual report point to a new reality: a company’s sheer scale and financial strength alone no longer guarantee resilience. Geographic diversification, brand identity, access to wealthier customers and control of new digital tools are becoming essential strategic advantages. And their importance will only grow.