Are private sales a way to face the crisis?

The haute couture dealing is usually preroragative of the iper-richs or the celebs who received free high fashion clothes from maisons in exchange of advertisement. Nowadays, the luxury appears accessible also for common human beings thanks to the discounted prices because of the crisis.

Due to outlets, mark-ups are under pressure and a lot of haute couture brands, like Gaultier, had to undersell before Xmas time. From Paris to Milan, through NY and London, a lot of sales has been made by most maisons. Insted of the public sales on windows shops that might ruin corporate image and the formula "quality=high price", they preferred to be more discrete with the "private sales".

Private sales are usually reserved to devoted customers who receive an invitation via email, and are applied to a restrict display of products. This year, some journalists of Reuters found out that this is not completely true. In fact, some clients could enter the private sales also without invitation and buy the whole collections at Prada, Gaultier and Jimmy Choo. Although a lot of spokeman have a no-comment opinion about, actually it happens in this way. Are the big brands planning a fund-raising programme during the crisis?