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With the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China and most recently South Africa) calling for a non-European to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the new head of the International Monetary Fund on the heels of his sexual-assault scandal, ending what they BRICs (and alike nations) have dubbed as an “obsolete” rule by The West, it’s no surprise that when it comes to the growth in the luxury market, companies have their eyes on a new, never before imagined, future.

Even at the 2011 G20 Summit, Zhou Xiaochuan, who runs China’s central bank, said that it doesn’t matter whether or not the new head of the IMF is French or European, but that the new leadership of the IMF should reflect the growing stature and needs of emerging economies, implying the new leader should be from one of the latter.

It’s a clear shift in the winds of commerce into a New World, where “what once was” is beginning to take a second step into a new, certainly more exotic, way of life.

No one said it better than, Starwood Hotels and Resorts CEO, Fritz Van Paasschen, at the Global Luxury and Fashion Summit 2011

“Thirty years ago, in the Forbes 400, so many people in that group were heirs and had come from money, I think the term ‘nouveau riche’ had a clear disparaging aspect to it. Whereas today, most money is new.”

This, on the heels on his company planning no less than eight new hotels by 2016 (publicly released as of May 2011,) for their contemporary and trendy, luxury brand of W Hotels, in Africa, China and other East Asian nations. In fact, the W St. Petersburg opened  in Russia a little over one month ago, on April 20, 2011.

But while a lot of brands are still concentrating on Russia, India and China, with the World Cup in 2014, followed closely by the Summer Olympics in 2016, a lot more companies are focusing their attention on BRAZIL. [Read more...]