Rich cut back or don’t flaunt wealth

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. | Throwing money around is so prerecession.

As the economy weakens, the wealthy and the businesses that cater to them say it’s more common — even chic — to scale back extravagant spending and play down affluence. Retailing experts call it luxury shame, or stealth wealth.

From Rodeo Drive to Fifth Avenue, that means one thing: Hide the labels.

Some shoppers are asking cashiers at high-end stores to put their purchases in plain white paper bags. Others want their expensive clothes and jewelry shipped home so they can walk out of the store without any bags at all.

“There’s a sense of there being a gaucheness in spending in excess and coming home with a Louis Vuitton or Chanel bag,” says Lucyann Barry, a personal shopper and stylist for New York’s wealthy.

For one self-conscious client, Ms. Barry recently delivered a $1,200 Gucci handbag disguised as a gift so the rest of her family wouldn’t know she had bought it herself.

Of course, plenty of rich people have become decidedly less so as stocks, homes and businesses have declined in value during the recession. And they’re cutting back. Holiday sales were down at Neiman Marcus, Tiffany & Co. and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Despite the slump, the affluent still maintain lifestyles that would seem extravagant to the vast majority of Americans — hundreds of dollars spent at exclusive restaurants, thousands dropped on shopping sprees.

What’s different now is the extra care some are putting into making themselves seem more like everybody else.

“I’m trying to be more covert,” said Edward Douglas, of Randolph, N.J., who owns a small manufacturing company that he says has so far been unaffected by the recession.

One of his luxuries is vacationing with his family in the Bahamas, and although he still intends to go this year, he’s planning to fly commercial instead of by private jet.

Robert Jones, who owns businesses including a nightclub and two restaurants, now spends $400 on a regular hotel room for his family rather than shelling out $1,000 for a suite.

And instead of chartering a private plane for business trips, he’s signed up for CoGoJets’ “jetpooling” service - the jet-set equivalent of sharing a taxi.

“A lot of us are downsizing, not only because we have to, but because we think it is the right thing to do,” he said.

At the trendy Intermix clothing store in west Los Angeles, some shoppers are still willing to drop $10,000 on a shopping spree that might bring home a couple of ostrich skin handbags, a pair of shoes and a designer dress.

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