Mention licensing to luxury brand executives and chances are you’ll be greeted with a shudder. Memories of the 1970s and Pierre Cardin’s ignominy are still fresh as ever. But these are testing times, particularly for younger brands low on resources, not to mention publicly-traded companies, where profitability – recession or no recession – is necessity, not choice. There’s no question licensing can help. And there’s no question we are seeing a thaw.

According to Luxury Briefing – an industry information service – the $192bn licensing business is set to grow by 4.7 per cent over the next few years, with a significant proportion of this from the luxury industry.