How Lunar New Year became a shopping holiday for Western brands

The stretch of time between end-of-year celebrations and Valentine’s Day is usually bleak. People are physically and financially drained from the holidays, and there’s not much to celebrate — a dry spell that has led brands to create a deluge of fake holidays like National Shortbread Day (January 6) and National Shop for Travel Day (January 14).

Within the past decade, a spate of brands both luxury and affordable have adopted a new holiday into their calendars, one that’s already celebrated by more than a billion people annually: Lunar New Year. In the US, the holiday is generally referred to as Chinese New Year, but Lunar New Year seems like a more accurate description, given that the event is also observed by non-Chinese people.

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