By RUTH LA FERLA


Only a year ago, Maggie Buckley might have indulged a craving for, say, satin opera gloves or python sandals with a quick trip to luxury department stores like Saks or Bergdorf Goodman. But now, in these recessionary times, she tends to avoid such public sorties.

“Shopping is almost embarrassing, and a little vulgar right now,” said Ms.Buckley, an editor at Allure magazine. Loath to be seen loading huge parcels into the back of a waiting cab, she finds herself shopping at discreet gatherings in the homes of her friends.

Ms.Buckley is one of the shoppers turning their backs on conspicuous consumption but searching for treasures nonetheless at invitation-only shopping events springing up in hotel suites, at private showrooms or in the well-appointed parlors of their peers.“People don’t want to be as public about shopping for luxury goods as they were in the past,”said Robert Burke, a luxury retail consultant in New York.“It’s a feelgood way to buy, and this is a time for feel-good things.”

Such covert shopping has long been enjoyed by the wealthy, people who could pay six figures for a diamond-and-sapphire brooch or sable wrap - and the privilege of exclusivity. But in the current climate, stealth consumption has gained a more potent appeal, taking place at gatherings with an insiders’feel.

“We’re like a little secret that people want to share, but not with just anybody,” said Eve Goldberg, an owner of William Goldberg, a diamond dealer in Manhattan. Ms.Goldberg’s company recently opened a salon that caters to clients who prefer to shop discreetly.

Private dealers, many of them dilettantes who acquire their wares from designer friends, at trade shows and from dealers and artisans in exotic locales, are the bane of recession-battered high-end merchants. But stealth parties offer the privileged a chance to consume without an inner censor chiding them for their spendthrift ways.

“There is certainly a stigma to spending openly in this economy,”said Eric Spangenberg, a consumer psychologist and the dean of the business school at Washington State University.“These people don’t want to appear flippant by disregarding the woes of the economy,”he said, “but they still want to get their shop on, and they’re going to find a way.”An opportunity for altruism may have eased the consciences of the 250 guests at the International Fashion party, a by-invitation event held recently at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco to benefit Rebekah Children’s Services, which aids children with emotional and behavioral problems. Filigreed chokers and diamond-studded earrings were offered alongside a rack of furs supplied by Saks Fifth Avenue. Prices ranged from $100 to $10,000 - or, furs apart, about 10 percent above the wholesale cost.

“We don’t need to mark up items so much as a store might,” said Dorothy Toressi, an organizer of the benefit.“We don’t need to hold inventories or pay salaries or other costs of overhead.”

Other covert shoppers conduct their operations on the Web.

“It seems counterintuitive, but the big ticket items are flying out,”said Ricky Serbin of Ricky’s Exceptional Treasures, a luxury resale store on eBay. Mr.Serbin said that in one week in November, he sold three Oscar de la Renta gowns, each for about $3,000.

What’s changed?“People like the anonymity of the Web,”Mr.Serbin suggested.