Like any industry that relies on consumer spending, luxury retail is worried about tariffs, inflation, and consumer sentiment. But that hasn’t kept monied brands from expanding.

Erewhon, the Los Angeles grocery store famous for its $20 Hailey Bieber smoothie, announced last week it’s opening an outpost in New York City. Louis Vuitton recently launched a makeup collection which includes $160 tubes of lipstick. Simon Property Group is turning more of its malls into luxury shopping spaces.

There’s always been a market for designer clothing, fine dining and fancy cars. But these days, shoppers can find luxe everything, everywhere.

“With everyone buying so much online and working from home people are still craving experience,” said Katherine Melchior Ray, a marketing professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Think: the experience of shopping with a glass of champagne. Or belonging to a gym that also feels like a spa.

For some consumers, luxury is no longer a special treat, but a lifestyle. And more companies see that as opportunity. Because, as Melchior Ray put it, “the people who are spending money for $19 melons don’t care.”

Yes, luxury fruit exists, too. Because a dollar is a dollar is a dollar, unless you make so many dollars that your perception of value is skewed. And the number of upper income households in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the last 50 years.

“The rising wealth in much of the world, in China and the U.S., doesn’t show any signs of diminishing,” said Gregory Carpenter, a marketing professor at Northwestern University. 

Those high earners are also on a spending spree. Households with the top 10% of incomes now account for nearly half of all consumer spending in the U.S., despite inflation. 

Aaron Cheris, who heads e-commerce at Bain and Company, said luxury brands are often more insulated during times of economic stress because their customers are more insulated, too.  

“Why do I focus on the high end consumer? It’s where the money is,” he said.

Cheris said increasingly, the money is either in Swiss watches and Hermes bags, or in affordable everyday stuff at Walmart and TJ Maxx. Because if you’re a company at the high or low end?

“I can say I’m the best at something. I’m cheapest, I’m, like, coolest, I’m fanciest,” he said.

But it’s harder to say you’re the best at anything when you’re selling products and services to a shrinking middle class.