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The pandemic has had many outcomes but one of the more striking, in economic terms, was the sharp increase it brought about in household savings as consumers were unable to go out and spend during lockdown.

It was a phenomenon observed not just in the UK but across Europe and the United States.

It is also the case that the greatest savings were run up by those who went into the pandemic with higher levels of savings in the first place, chiefly because of the emergency asset purchase schemes - Quantitative Easing, in the jargon - introduced by central banks such as the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England to stimulate activity.

Put those two factors together and it explains why the luxury goods sector is having a moment in the sun.

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Several trading statements from across Europe this week have borne that out.

On Tuesday, the Italian fashion group Prada surprised investors with an unscheduled trading update in which it said its sales during 2021 came in at €3.36bn, an increase of 41% on 2020 and an improvement of 8% on the pre-pandemic year of 2019. This was much better than had been expected by analysts.

Prada, which also owns the Miu Miu fashion brand and the Church's luxury shoe brand, said full price sales had been particularly strong and highlighted that, during the second half of the year, it had enjoyed a significant improvement in terms of revenues, margins and cash generation.

Patrizio Bertelli, Prada's chief executive, said: "2021 was a year full of challenges but we proved to be ready and quickly responded to the needs of an extremely dynamic market, putting in place actions that allowed us to understand changes in consumer behaviour effectively.

"The Prada Group has the capabilities and resources to set itself apart and deliver on its future growth objectives."

Then Wednesday brought news from Burberry, the British luxury fashion group, that its retail sales during the 13 weeks to Christmas Day hit £723m, up 5% on the same period in 2020.

Sales were up by 7% on a like-for-like basis, the measure that strips out the impact of store reopenings and refurbishments.

The news, which sent shares of Burberry up 6%, will give great heart to the company's shareholders because it is currently leaderless.

Its former chief executive Marco Gobbetti, who won praise for steadying the ship after the disastrous tenure of Christopher Bailey, left at the end of last year to become chief executive of Salvatore Ferragamo and his successor Jonathan Akeroyd, who is currently chief executive of Gianni Versace, is not due to arrive until April.

The company was keen to stress that, like Prada, full price sales had been strong. It said full-price comparable store sales were up 26% on a like-for-like basis with sales in the Americas notably strong while sales in the Asia Pacific and in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa had also shown a "material improvement".

The show-stopper, though, was from a company which with a stock market valuation of CHF70bn (£56bn) is very nearly three times as big as Prada (£12bn) and Burberry (£7bn) combined.

Richemont, the Swiss giant behind brands including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chloe, Montblanc and Alfred Dunhill, reported on Wednesday that its sales during the three months to the end of December were up 35% on the same period in 2020 to €5.66bn. They were up some 36% on the same period in 2019.

Again, this was much better than expected, sending shares in Richemont, the world's second largest luxury goods group after France's LVMH, up by more than 8% in Zurich at one point.

Sales were up strongly across the board but, in the core jewellery maisons arm including Cartier, they were up by 41% in 2020 and up by 55% on 2019. The company described this as a "stellar" showing.

Zuzanna Pusz, analyst at the investment bank UBS, said in a note to clients: "Richemont delivered an impressive third quarter with a beat [of analyst expectations] across the board and the strong sequential acceleration in all businesses and regions… should dismiss any concerns around a slow-down in the luxury market."

She said the showing would be taken as a positive for the whole luxury goods sector. Accordingly, there were gains across Europe for shares of other luxury goods groups, with LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tiffany and Bulgari, rising by 3.5% in Paris. Meanwhile Swatch, the world's biggest watch-maker, which reported the first loss in its history during the pandemic, saw its shares rise by 3% in Zurich.

Put all this together and it is clear that the luxury goods sector looks like being one of the immediate winners as the world emerges from pandemic - even with international travel, traditionally a key driver of sales, subdued.

This is almost certainly due to the improvement in the health of household balance sheets, particularly among wealthier consumers, as shown by the strength of full price sales.

But it also, to an extent, reflects work done by the luxury goods groups themselves during the pandemic.

With stores closed across the world, they had to think harder about how they communicated with and sold to their consumers, particularly through social media. The extra work put in during the crisis is now starting to pay off.

The good news for these businesses is that having been forced to make tough decisions on costs during the pandemic, whether that was laying off staff or closing stores with onerous lease obligations, a greater proportion of those sales is also likely to drop through to the bottom line.

The chances are that these companies will continue to benefit even as economies around the world reopen - potentially creating more competition for luxury goods groups as consumers look again to going out more.

As LVMH recently told analysts, even when people start going out again, they will still want to look and feel good.

The challenge for investors is deciding, in this encouraging environment, which companies will be the biggest winners.