Luxury Fashion: Ethics, Exploitation, and the Illusion of Craftsmanship

[imjustken]

This isn't the most recent news but I haven't seen it being discussed here.

'LVMH's Italian Dior maker is being investigated for outsourcing its luxury manufacturing to Chinese-owned firms that allegedly exploit workers'

LVMH’s Italian Dior maker is being investigated for outsourcing luxury goods manufacturing to Chinese-owned firms that allegedly exploit workers

The ruling found that employees slept at their workplace just to ensure they were “available 24 hours a day,” a report said.

fortune.com

I never thought I'd see this come up but I'm definitely glad it did. I was outraged when I found that out years ago and that Vuitton makes shoes in low wage countries.

Revealed: the Romanian site where Louis Vuitton makes its Italian shoes

All but the soles of the luxury brand’s footwear are made in Transylvania before being ‘finished’ in Italy and France

www.theguardian.com

At the time, it prompted me to think that the whole of luxury was a scam and I still stand by that to some degree. The idea of luxury is oftentimes smokes and mirrors. But the products are still there and they often look beautiful, they're just not made in a good way, even if owners want you to think they are.

We could talk about LVMH and Hermès buying crocodiles farms in Australia, how those animals are treated, the real cost of a Hermès bag and the exploitation and pollution of leather production on which the whole fashion industry sits on. These are moral and ethical issues I thought nobody cared about and then this Dior lawsuit came up. Some hope at last.

There is also a Hermès lawsuit in which they are accused of trying to squeeze all the money that they can out of their customers under the guise of having to have a good enough taste to buy the products and in a way advertise them.

With The Birkin Lawsuit, Hermès Makes Clear What Money Alone Can’t Buy

The Birkin lawsuit presents an opportunity for luxury brands to understand what makes Hermes such a valuable company, both financially and from a consumer perspective.

www.forbes.com

 

[tigerrouge]

"Luxury" left the building a long time ago, it's become the "designer label" industry, centred around a core of owners/shareholders, in the business of selling logos, where head designers get passed around like football managers on precarious contracts, and every inch of the experience has the life sucked out of it by the deadening effect of elevating social media above every other value.

Not to say there weren't times in the past when a company would willingly degrade its own products and reputation, by entering into a hundred low-level franchises. I can remember those times, and I still find it hard to look at certain logos in the same way. But I suppose spreadsheets don't account for the loss of anything intangible.

 

[vogue22]

A few years ago, there was a documentary about luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton using subcontractors' sweatshops in Italy where undocumented African and Chinese immigrant workers were hired to cut labor costs, all while the brands could still claim that their shoes and bags were made in Italy.

 

[blueorchid]

@vogue22 there's a documentary about the brand Brandi Melville (lol) that actually investigated into that practice, it was very interesting!