The financial hurricanes of the past two months have pushed many of our most beloved urban species to the brink. The rapacious investment banker, the oleaginous Foxtons salesman, the ruinously expensive Russian escort: all are now on the endangered list. But none has seen their habitat battered so mercilessly as the lesser- spotted hedge-fund wife of South Kensington.

Before the crash, the wives of the most successful hedgies — Hags, as they were termed, to distinguish them from the glitzier footballer Wags — lived in some style. While their husbands made a fortune speculating in exotic financial products from their tie-free Mayfair offices (Noam Gottesman and Pierre Lagrange of GLG, for instance, paid themselves £400m each last year), the wives put their degrees to good use by starting boutique handbag businesses. They split their time between five-storey townhouses in SW7 or W1, sprawling country piles in the home counties and bijou bolt holes in Sardinia. They dressed like peacocks and ate like sparrows.

Now, not only are hedge funds as a whole doing rather badly, but Hags find themselves in a stifling position: they are unfashionable. Hedgies have watched their image swing from “masters of the universe” to “spivs”, and their wives now find themselves on the wrong side of a national argument. “We’ve had a slap,” says Caroline Stanbury, a stylist married to a hedge-fund banker. “But if you look at the lifestyles of the past few years, it’s been crazy. When did multimillion-pound houses and private jets become the norm?”

Not that Hags as a group were ever flash. When you spent money, you did so in ways that only economic equals would understand. So, for instance, you became a grand tier patron of the Royal Opera House (annual fee: £46,100). You had “stiffy” invitations printed at Mount Street for a six-person dinner party. You kept weekly hair appointments at Hari’s in South Ken. “The dinner parties still happen, there is a social scene going on,” says Stanbury, “but people are thinking about the choices they make. If they used to fly NetJets, they’re now flying commercial. They’re thinking: should we go for Sandy Lane in Barbados for Christmas, or go in January when it’s half the price? Do I need another Hermès Birkin?”

Such a statement might cause the Hag-magnet London department stores to break out in a sweat, because, just as the hedge-fund managers are market-movers in finance, so their wives are in shopping. Harvey Nichols insists it has reacted fast to the “changing retail conditions”. The buying director Averyl Oates is conscious her archetypal customer is “looking for investment pieces — classics — rather than one- season wonders. She is also spending more money on accessories, such as jewellery and shoes, to easily modernise an outfit.”

If the women are counting their £50 notes, think of the professionals whose businesses depend on them. Jan Stanek, a Harley Street plastic surgeon whose clientele includes a host of Hags, has seen his waiting list halved in recent months. “We’ve seen fewer people for minor things, like Botox and fillers,” he says. “If someone is prepared to spend £5,000 on a nose job, they are going to go ahead with it. But people are very hesitant about Botox. Instead of having it every four months, they are waiting an extra month or two. They are listening to all this doom and gloom and thinking: ‘Will this procedure actually make me feel better?’ ”

If Botox can’t make a girl feel better, what will? Pearls? Chrissie Douglas of Coleman Douglas Pearls in Knightsbridge says: “The bigger, expensive pieces are being considered more. Whereas, before, people wouldn’t think twice about this amount of money, now they are weighing up their options before buying.”

One Hag tells me that considerations about jewellery and holidays are “small fry . . . it’s the big stuff we’re worried about”. This sounds like bad news for Peter Wetherell, a Mayfair estate agent. However, while he has seen business drop, he is still shifting Mayfair townhouses. “The super-prime properties — £30m or more — those deals are still happening, although you have to look a bit harder for them,” he says. “The difference is that now those sales don’t make the papers, because British people with money are keeping a lower profile. The bling has gone.”

Herein lies the nub of the Hag’s crash dilemma: what to do if you haven’t lost money. “It’s a question of effect rather than affect,” says Peter York, the social commentator. “Clever hedge-funders — those who have made so much money already, they never have to work again — must be seen to be sharing the little people’s pain. Everyone will drive a G-Wiz and feed their dinner-party guests with earthy, simple dishes that the hired help has taken hours to prepare.”

It is not quite time, then, to mourn the passing of the Hag. The cash in their husbands’ pockets will allow them to hibernate through a recession winter, while the robust value of their mortgage-free houses will provide further ballast against the cold. Until the gloom lifts, Hags must look glum, while the rest of us give more authentic performances of financial misery.

Poverty Chic

FASHION Out go the flashy Balmain one-season-wonder cocktail dresses; in come discreet, timeless classics by Bottega Veneta.

JEWELLERY The Boodles Raindance necklace is raising too many eyebrows, so she drops it off at Robinson Pelham, where it is transformed into several smaller pieces by their “new from old” service.

TRANSPORT She used to fly NetJets, but now she checks out which first-class cabins come with the best user reviews at flatseats.com.

ENTERTAINING Instead of organising a gala do for 300, she throws private dinners for six via Smythson invites.

HOLIDAY No Christmas break at Chris Blackwell’s Goldeneye resort for her this year; she books a fortnight in January on Necker Island, where nobody will see her.

AESTHETICS Monthly Botox top-ups are a no-no, so she heads to LA on “charity business” and invests in an oh-so-subtle Contour ThreadLift face lift that will last the year.

THE CAR She fires the chauffeur and opens an account with Addison Lee’s VIP service.

Times recommends

• Are eldest children really a cut above?
• Peaches Geldof: censored
• Top 10 style-setting films of all time