Luxury Brands Scam You Into Buying Target Value at Luxury Prices
Brands like Dior and Chanel are being called out for selling cheap fast fashion at high fashion prices
I love beautifully crafted things. And I enjoy having bespoke items that others don't have. I even learned how to sew so I could fashion my own clothes. On my graduation day, I wore a trouser suit of my own making.
Having something unique that others can't replicate is a special luxury. One that is hard to achieve. Or expensive.
Luxury brands profit from people's willingness to spend a lot to appear unique (and wealthy). People are looking for quality and exclusivity.
But that's not what they're buying. Turns out luxury brands are duping them into buying fast fashion value at ridiculous prices.
The rise of Chinese sweatshops in Italy
Wearing a high-quality piece of well-fitting clothes, a pair of tailor-made shoes, or jewelry made for you specifically is a beautiful thing. Slow fashion, made to last for years, isn't just more personal. It is also good for the environment.
According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, the average person in the 1980s bought 12 items of clothing per year and wore them for ten years. Today, people buy 68 items and wear them three times.
The quality of many clothes you can buy today is so shoddy it feels like it wouldn't hold up much longer than three times anyway.
So sewing, knitting and creating things allows me to regain a little control over the quality of things I own. I love gifting handcrafted accessories to my friends and family, knowing every piece I give them is unique, and they'll be the only ones to have it.
Many people want to escape the fast fashion cycle and buy high-quality pieces to ensure they're special and last long. They may go for high fashion brands if they can afford them because they are seen as the epitome of quality and luxury.
Seeing how "luxury" brands are scamming their customers and selling them what amounts to fast fashion at luxury prices makes me extremely angry.
If you think I'm exaggerating, look at what's happening in Italy.
In June, an Italian court placed Christian Dior under judicial administration for a year. They use Chinese subcontractors to produce their products dirt cheap. Not the biggest surprise, maybe.
But, the twist is that they made their Chinese subcontractors relocate to Italy so that they could keep the "Made in Italy" stamp.
And, the Chinese workers in these now "Italian" sweatshops are illegal immigrants who are exploited so the companies can still produce at "Made in China" prices.
According to the Economic Times, Dior pays these subcontractors $57 per bag. Bags that are then sold for $2,780 to their customers.
One might hope this is a fluke, but this is not the first time a fashion brand has been caught with its fingers in the cookie jar. Earlier in April, a subsidiary of Georgio Armani Operations was also put under judicial administration for a year.
Why? They were charged with favoring Chinese gangmastering.
Specifically, they were accused of subcontracting the production of their bags to two firms, which in turn subcontracted the work to four Chinese companies that paid workers as little as 2 to 3 euros per hour.
According to Firstonline, the accusations are extensive:
profit maximization inducing” the Chinese factory “that actually produces the manufactured goods to reduce labor costs (contributions, insurance and direct taxes) by resorting to ‘black’ and clandestine labour, not observing the rules relating to health and safety in the workplace as well as not respecting the national collective labor agreements in the sector regarding workforce wages, working hours, breaks and holidays”.
Both Dior and Armani belong to the LVMH Group. A conglomerate of brands such as Cristian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Givenchy and Guerlain. To name just a few. All brands that you'd associate with luxury, exclusivity and quality.
And there's more. Earlier this year, an investigation by Bloomberg pointed out exploitation in the supply chain of the LVMH-owned Loro Piana brand.
This time, the issue was $9,000 sweaters made from Vicuña wool sourced from unpaid Peruvian farmers.
Selling a sweater for this amount would leave enough room to pay the people involved in the production process fairly. But apparently, that is no longer the world we live in. Profit must always be maximized at all costs.
If you're unfamiliar with Loro Piana, it is one of the touchstone brands in the so-called quiet luxury trend. A trend that is likely above your (and my) pay grade. Even if you're able to afford that $2,780 Chanel bag.
These brands are worn by wealthy people who wouldn't be seen dead with a tacky brand logo on their clothes or bags.
Meanwhile, according to Reuters, at least a dozen more brands are under investigation for similar practices. They're not telling us who these brands are, but we're free to speculate.
A history of exploitation
These exploitative practices in Italian high fashion have been going on for a while.
In 2014, the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) published a comprehensive study called "Can you earn a living wage in fashion in Italy?"
The TLDR answer was NO, even back then.
At the time, fashion brands had started buying back the old factories they closed due to competition from cheaper production sites in Turkey and the post-socialist European countries. Brands like Louis Vuitton, Armani, Prada and Dior started relocating their production back to Italy.
Italy became "competitive" again. But only by turning these companies into low-cost production sites, participating in the international competition for low wages and poor working conditions.
Companies like Armani, Valentino, Versace and Max Mara also started working with low-cost subcontractors based in Italy.
The upside was that they could use the coveted "Made in Italy" label for their products again.
A label such as "Made in Italy" or "Made in France" evokes the vision of quality and craftsmanship. In contrast to a "Made in China" label, which is still seen as a sign of cheaply produced inferior quality.
The decline in the quality of luxury brands' products caused by cheap production is now glaringly obvious. This poor woman even thought she'd been sold a fake bag in the Chanel store because of its inferior quality:
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Brands don't tell their customers they're selling cheap fast fashion upgraded by sticking a label on it. Or that the contractors they use hire Asian — often illegal Chinese immigrants — under precarious working conditions.
Low wages, a lack of protection against dismissal and low job security are the norm in these sweatshops.
The CCC report changed nothing.
In 2019, the Italian police uncovered sweatshops in Naples allegedly making leather goods for "some of Europe's best-known luxury groups."
When they searched the owner's building, 50 illegal workers, including a pregnant woman and two teenagers, were found hiding in a storeroom among rolls of leather and piles of shoes and bags.
All the brands implicated immediately denied any relationship with the owner of these shops.
But, both the current developments and the frequency of these reports and allegations indicate a history of exploitation of workers and misleading customers in the fashion industry.
A history that should deter anyone from giving these brands their hard-earned money.
Fashion brands are making their customers look gullible
Luxury brands profit off people's urge to feel special.
When I see people spending thousands of dollars on a Birkin or Chanel bag, I assume they're chasing that elusive feeling of uniqueness.
Wearing an item from a brand like Chanel, Dior, or Hermes would once make you stand out. High fashion used to give you an aura of sophistication. And, of course, make people think you have money.
Not any longer. The enshittification of the world has long reached the high fashion scene. They're flogging off cheaply produced fast fashion at luxury prices to gullible consumers.
Brands like Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, and the like offer products priced just at the edge of what working people aspiring to a higher societal status can afford—that is if they save for a while or overextend their credit cards.
Buying these "luxury" brand items no longer makes you look refined; it makes you look like a victim of fraud.
This kind of "luxury" is now just another effective route to transfer money from the have-nots into the pockets of the filthy rich. Who, in turn, have long since moved on to other brands that still deliver high quality but are completely unaffordable for anyone on the wage labor scale.
If you want to spend that kind of money on a bag, please go and support an artisan.
There are skilled people who can make you a bag according to your own design for half the price of a Chanel bag. A unique bag that no one else has and that you will enjoy for the rest of your life.
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I absolutely loved reading this and learning more about luxury brands illegal practices.
I stopped buying (and coveting) “designer” goods about 7 years ago for many reasons, some covered in this essay.
More importantly I reduced my clothing consumption exponentially and now only buy a few pieces a year from independent women owned, women operated, and locally made boutique brands. They employ women seamstresses, pay them a living wage and offer benefits. They also offer free alterations for that perfect fit. Clothes you can truly feel good about!
On the plus side, because of my former consumption I never have to buy another damn handbag ever again!! LOL
This article has me thinking about the relationship we have to our items, both when in their creation and when we own them. I heard from this article that our items have meaning and we can choose to buy better items for not only ourselves but for other people. These sweatshops exist because people continue to buy the items. And I just know we would all be happier and the world would be kinder to one another if we stopped consuming so much. Thank you for sharing.