Sales of luxury items are increasing at a fast pace, picking up dramatically over the past 6 years and the gap between the average American who is cutting back on grocery trips due to high gas prices and these rich consumers is growing ever wider. According to Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s retail division for leasing sales, the appetite for unbridled luxury is only rising. Sales of luxury products increased ot $150 billion in 2006, of which the US accounded for 30% of spending. Sales had declined after the terrorist acts of 2001 and are now back up to speed.

Another reason why luxury products have increased sales is that due to the declining dollar, high spending tourists from Asia and Russia are coming to the US and spending money on high priced luxury items. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider than in the Depression Era.

According to Carol Brodie, chief luxury officer at CurtCo Media, the publisher of the Robb Report, whose annual issue features the year’s best-of-the-best like a $330,000 Mikimoto golden pearl choker, the super rich don’t want just the expensive. What they are looking for is the rarest item, something that is custom-made and the best quality. Unlike the 1980s and 1990s, “it’s not about the logos,” she said. “It shouts quietly.”