“People want product quality,” said Jeong-Hey Seok, a designer who founded Couronne and serves as its creative director. “Origin matters less.”

The emergence of brands such as Couronne, Woo and Farah Khan, whose dresses have been worn by socialite Paris Hilton, comes as luxury growth slows. Sales of luxury goods will rise between 6 percent and 7 percent annually through 2017 after expanding at least 10 percent in each of the past three years, estimates Sanford Bernstein.

Prada this month reported an uneven start to the year, saying unusually cold weather and the economic crisis in Europe and threats of nuclear strikes by North Korea hurt demand.

“Market conditions are a bit more complicated,” Prada Finance Director Donatello Galli said after the Milan-based company posted decelerating same-store sales growth in the three months ended Jan. 31.

Shanghai Tang

Despite such troubles, Asian luxury brands aren’t going to unseat the Europeans anytime soon. Almost half of Chinese shoppers think well-known labels offer better quality, versus 16 percent of Americans, according to consultant McKinsey & Co. And Couronne’s name, meaning crown in French, suggests European roots, or at least implying them, helps sell leather goods.

“For the kind of mass luxury that starts to really trouble European brands, in my view you’re still fighting 200 years of history,” said Rahul Sharma, managing director of Neev Capital.

With fewer decent targets available in Europe and emerging markets driving growth, though, established luxury goods companies are increasingly looking at Asia for acquisitions, according to Bryan Garnier & Co.

After buying Hong Kong jeweler Qeelin in December, PPR said it’s seeking more brands from the region to bolster sales. Cie. Financiere Richemont SA, owner of jeweler Cartier, has Chinese fashion label Shanghai Tang, and Hermes owns Shang Xia, a Chinese brand that’s opening a store in Paris in September. L Capital, a private equity fund backed by LVMH, says it has invested in a half dozen Asian luxury businesses since 2010.

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