The aspirational luxury shoppers, those whose average annual salary is about $150,000, began cutting back a year ago.... That spiraled up the economic scale after the economy worsened.

Single-digit millionaires began pulling back sharply starting in March, when Bear Stearns nearly collapsed and was bought by JP Morgan in a fire sale, Pedraza said.

And the ultra-wealthy with a net worth above $10 million — who make up about 60 percent of sales and 20 percent of top luxury stores’ customer base — started cutting back in September, when the financial crisis ballooned, Pedraza told the Associated Press.

Overall, wealthy Americans are seeing their fortunes shrink:

Americans’ wealth fell 4.7 percent to $56.5 trillion in the third quarter from the second, the biggest decline since the second quarter of 1962, according to Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody’s Economy.com.

Meanwhile, investment bankers who once could depend on $3 million annual compensation to finance their spending are facing shrinking bonuses, long-term unemployment or worthless company stock, where they may have had most of their net worth.

In Palm Beach, consignment shops are seeing an upswing in business.

Many of the most exclusive labels are holding "private sales" so as not to damage their image in the eye of the public.

Instead of advertising discounts in shop windows - which can damage the brand by undermining the notion that quality comes at a price - they have been luring buyers with discreet "private sales", some of them earlier this year than last.

Sonia Rykiel, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jimmy Choo, Prada, Armani, Gucci, Tod’s, Dolce & Gabbana, Alexander McQueen, Gianfranco Ferre and Alberta Ferretti have been offering discounts or holding private sales, but not at every store or in every country.

Georgio Armani, on the other hand, is expanding and building new stores, particularly his A/X brand of youth clothing.

Other brands are also creating less expensive sub-brands, which experts say will devalue the name.

Many of these brands are made and sold overseas. Is the global economic crisis not affecting them overseas? There's planned expansion in Australia and India. But in Dubai, sales are down 20%.

Giorgio Armani doesn't seem worried even though Americans have been canceling sales orders for his exclusive Prive dresses (a line you see frequently at awards shows on the red carpet.) He believes it's a psychological, not economic, decision.

His 33-year-old company, which has 500 stores, has no debt and had 373 million euros of cash at the end of 2007, which will help the brand as he stays at the helm during the downturn.

,,,Armani, who wouldn’t comment on his company’s current sales or cash, said he was “amazed” about the cancelled Prive dress orders and the severity of the current slowdown.

“It wasn’t about not having the money,” Armani said. “It’s a psychological issue. Nobody’s shopping. The recession is in full force and everybody in our sector is going to feel it, from Zara to Cartier.”

Armani says while the U.S. and Japan have been tough, business is fine elsewhere -- particularly in Europe and China. Still,

Slowing demand and plunging stock markets in the past six months have prompted indebted suitmaker Brioni Roman Style SpA to search for new investors and halted Prada SpA’s fourth attempt to sell stock to the public. Other companies, such as jeweler Bulgari SpA, have suspended store openings.

I'm wondering how important the American economy and U.S. sales are to these designer brands, most of which are based outside the U.S.

I suspect EBay will be jammed pack with designer goods at great prices in the coming months. The problem is spotting the frauds. If you see a deal that looks like it's too good to be true, it probably is.