LONDON: Dust off your bling and your Dolce and Gabbana: the Russians are coming to London — and they are bringing their roubles.
London hosts the Russian Economic Forum this week, a conference that brings top-level newsmakers from Moscow and attracts serious investor attention.
But the yearly event has long been upstaged by its parallel fashion and shopping extravaganza, as some of the planet’s nouveaux-riche — with their spectacularly skinny wives and equally fat wallets — descend on the British capital.
It kicked off this year ahead of the conference with a red carpet party and catwalk show of Russian fashion designers at London’s stately Victoria and Albert museum on Friday night.
Outside the Bentleys were parked on the pavement and the paparazzi snapping away.
Luxury retailers are salivating.
“They don’t balk at wearing silk, fur, cashmere and shiny finished clothes. They can happily wear a three-quarter length full leather coat with fur collar, for instance,” said Bruno Barba of upscale London department store Selfridges.
And that’s just the men.
Russian men have bought six 6,000 pound ($10,000) coats made of rare Vicuna wool in just the past week at the store, he said.
As for the women, they will be jetting back to Moscow with their ‘favourite brands by far’ — Dolce and Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli and Missoni — and ‘expensive, showy pieces from our jewellery counters’.
“Bling is definitely a trend they are sensitive to,” he added.
Years after they first started snapping up town houses in London’s Mayfair district and sending their children to fancy private schools in the English countryside, Russia’s post-Soviet millionaires are no longer exotic sights in the UK.
Britain’s second richest man is the young Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who turned up a few years ago and bought the ultimate London souvenir — Chelsea Football Club.
Banker Alexander Smolensky has since bought the TVR sports car factory in Blackpool for his twenty-something son Nikolai.
And increasingly Russians have become known in London for glamour as well as wealth, not least since six-foot-two-inch blonde Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004.
The designers from Friday night’s fashion show — along with a hand-picked group of other ‘high profile Russians’ — were invited to Harrods department store for a ‘lunch and shopping event’ on Saturday, said Harrods spokesman Michael Mann.
They were met by ‘personal shopping assistants’ and sales reps from Harrods Estates, the store’s real estate arm which sells upscale apartments in its posh Knightsbridge neighbourhood. Countess Spencer, step-mother of the late Princess Diana, was on hand to give a speech.
Harrods employs full-time Russian-speaking staff in its tax-free purchases department to help its wealthy clients from the East fill out their paperwork to escape VAT.
“The Russians are amongst our top-spending and most important customers. It’s important to make them feel welcome,” Mann said.—Reuters
