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In Argentina, a country run by a glamorous president with a penchant for couture, luxury brands are dropping like flies.

The latest boutique to bow out is Louis Vuitton, following on the finely-shod heels of Cartier, which has announced its imminent exit, along with Emporio Armani, Salvatore Ferragamo, Escada, Calvin Klein and Yves Saint Laurent. Ermenegildo Zegna has downsized and Ralph Lauren Polo says it has shut up shop temporarily.

Why? Well, a clampdown on imports makes life hard if you’re trying to bring in foreign luxury. A slew of foreign exchange controls have made things hard for shoppers, the latest being an unwritten limit on dollar purchases for Argentines heading overseas, according to opposition business paper El Cronista Comercial. And Argentina’s rampant inflation has made the country expensive for foreign visitors.

Since its 2001 default on nearly $100bn of debt has all but cut the country off from international credit, Argentina has been applying a policy of “vivir con lo nuestro” or “live on what we have”. Though it has restructured more than 90 per cent of that debt and has repaid other obligations (with the rather large exception of the Paris Club), its dubious inflation statistics and unpredictable policymaking have increasingly forced it to make a virtue out of such an approach.

Which must explain the reaction of Enrique Meyer, tourism minister, to the exodus of foreign luxury brands. Nothing to worry about here, he reckons. No, what matters is the march of Argentine brands abroad, he says, such as clothes makers Cardon and Pampero, ice-cream brand Freddo, and El Noble, maker of the much-loved and Cardon’s pasties – which has even opened in China.

Who needs foreign bling?

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