Shops and shopping centres are opening their doors this Sunday, 23 October, for Mantelsonndeg, or Coat Sunday in Luxembourgish.
“The Mantelsonndeg remains one of the best Sundays of the year for the textile sector,” says Marc Herber, president of Femo, the fashion federation.
Traditionally, on the last Sunday before All Saints’ Day, shops open their doors to allow people to buy a new coat to face the winter and to visit the graves of the deceased.
Special offers in the middle of the season
Mantelsonndeg is a day marked by sales offers, with discounts usually given on coats in the middle of the winter season.
Mantelsonndeg and Black Friday do not compete with each other.
“The new collections are delivered up to six times per season, so there is a new collection every month. From November onwards, the shops are constantly clearing out goods that are no longer 100% in line with the season or the weather. In this context, Mantelsonndeg and Black Friday do not compete with each other,” says Herber.
The end-of-year festivities will start to show up in the shop windows, as demonstrated by the arrival of advent calendars in many shops.
Friday 25 November will be marked by Black Friday, a promotional operation that originated in the United States and which is now gaining ground in Luxembourg. This will be followed by the exceptional Sunday openings on 27 November, 4 December, 11 December and 18 December.
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With Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on a Sunday this year, any rest will be short-lived as the winter sales are expected to start on Monday 2 January 2023. Exceptional Sunday openings are planned until the end of the sales season on Saturday 28 January.
In the meantime, the Mantelsonndeg is counting on a full house for its first post-covid edition. Although the inflationary context may weigh on consumers' shopping desires, Femo is reassuring: “Young families are tending to buy a little less, and we are seeing a slight decrease in the average shopping basket among this target. Conversely, older people and retirees have regained the desire to shop after years of covid, their purchasing power seems less affected by inflation and sales are currently at a level comparable to 2019, the last year without a global crisis.”
This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.