Personal luxury goods ranging from diamonds to sneakers have proved helpful supplementary revenue spinners for the auction houses in trickier times, even accounting for a third of sales at Sotheby’s last year. But as sales growth slows considerably in the global luxury sector, how reliable is this latest line of business?

While auction sales were down across the board last year, at Christie’s the biggest drop came in luxury goods, which plunged 31% to $678m in 2024. By comparison, 20th/21st-century art sales fell by 15%, and the beleaguered Old Masters sector by 29%.

The biggest drop within luxury goods was for jewellery, down nearly 36%, according to ArtTactic, which points to the underlying cause of the Christie’s drop. In May 2023, its Geneva saleroom made $202m from jewellery sold out of the estate of the Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten. Sales of such magnitude are very rare in this field, says Rahul Kadakia, head of Christie’s jewellery department—the last time Christie’s had a nine-figure collection was in 2019 (from Qatar’s Al-Thani royal family for $109m) and before that in 2011, when Elizabeth Taylor’s jewels made nearly $116m.

Kadakia says that the numbers are “almost flat” if the Horten sale is stripped out, although the 2024 fall would still be 15%, so the best that can be said is that this is better than the total auction drop of 26%. And Christie’s had some individual hits in 2024, including the ‘Eden Rose’ diamond ring ($13.3m) and 12 bottles of Domaine Romanée-Conti for $290,000.

Such sales really do point to a distinct “money is no object” buyer, though the latest report from the Business of Fashion and McKinsey on the wider luxury sector paints a gloomy picture. It found that luxury grew faster than GDP between 2019 and 2023 (5% compound annual growth, including 9% during the post-Covid bounce) but petered out last year and is predicted to post only 1%-3% a year between 2024 and 2027. This is still growth but, the report finds, “Dynamism in emerging markets such as the Middle East, India and other Asia-Pacific regions will not compensate for single-digit growth in luxury’s core markets such as China and Europe.”

Luxury loves its niche

At the same time, auction house executives are beginning to admit that the so-called “gateway drug” effect of luxury—in other words, that this category brings in buyers who then move on to fine art—has been overstated. There is some success—Kadakia puts it at about 20%—but what does ring true is his point that luxury goods are a gateway to other luxury goods, so a wine buyer, for instance, is likely to check out jewellery, handbags and watches too. There are an increasing number of avenues to pursue here: Christie’s has recently added classic cars to its offering, while Sotheby’s also entices with streetwear and sneakers. Art-adjacent areas, notably memorabilia, are also proving profitable.

Expect more. I can imagine luxury travel and wellness experiences coming into play as the auction houses adjust their offerings to meet the evolving tastes of buyers, but don’t expect their attentions to land anywhere for long. Consumers are notoriously fickle, including at luxury levels, and have plenty of choice.