Although the economic downturn has affected the luxury goods segment, industry experts still appear to be holding out hope.

Speaking at the Reuters Global Luxury Summit in London on June 8, Scilla Huang Sun, who runs a $30 million luxury fund for Swiss banking firm Julius Baer, said: "The worst thing that can happen is that we have another year of negative growth in 2010... But I see it picking up definitely by 2011."

She predicts that global sales of luxury goods will fall by between 5% and 10% this year but believes the luxury market will survive the economic turmoil. "I don't think it's dead because I think human nature will always be attracted to nice product and nice brands," she said at the event. "The question is when will it be back to the level we saw in 2007?"

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