Western brands began to reduce prices to circumvent anti-Russian sanctions.

Latvian customs told the Financial Times that 60 shipments of luxury goods intended for import into Russia have been rejected since the beginning of 2024. The prices for these goods indicated in customs declarations were artificially low, customs officials believe. In addition, middlemen often try to pass off the contents of packages as personal property, for example by removing labels from bags, writes FT.

The publication also analyzed the Russian customs record and found that men’s suits sent to Russia by the Italian company Canali cost an average of 600 euros per piece until the beginning of 2022. After the introduction of sanctions, the price of suits by almost all deliveries fell below 300 euros. According to the Financial Times, this has nothing to do with the company’s pricing policy, since the cost of Canali suits imported to other countries has not changed.

At TSUM, the Italian brand’s suits are sold at a price of around 170,000 rubles (more than 1,600 euros), the newspaper notes.

Some Western brands that continue to supply products to Russia produce “capsule collections” at prices that meet sanctions requirements, Ekaterina Nogai, head of the analytical department at IBC Real Estate, told the Financial Times. According to the company, about half of the major Western design houses that were represented in Russia in 2020 are still available to Russians and are bringing new collections to the country.