🎯🎯🎯

The marketing and advertising is def worth that lol these bags are a representation of the fantasies and desires and beauty that are the product of the designers. Unfortunately the judgement of the people in charge of the brand’s longevity have been clouded by greedy aspirations, and luxury lovers are left dumbfounded. What a way to ruin the experience !!!!

They are not just check the resale market lol Dior no value

😢

need these luxury ytbers a reality check

I know

Of course not

LV is in famous for mass-producing the bags in China and finish them in France to mark Made in France.

It is Armani as well...

Yes yes yes. Always heard stories like this but never direct from someone who saw it with their own eyes. Thank you for sharing. I believe it.

Exactly the illusion is real!

I stick with contemporary brand for a long time. Brands like Coach and Tory Birch make High quality Brands and charge a reasonable price. They are honest about where they made it. The Lux brands that are made in Italy are literally made by Chinese factories set up in Italy

Indeed! Luxury is an illusion of exclusion.

Yes, your bag is indeed priceless, but so what? I just think you are not wise enough. Why not buy a *condup* bag, which is economical and affordable.

@@YochamChai thanks i dont need your advice

you right............

So true. Clearly not worth the thousands of dollars. A straight scam

Fake designer bags would have the same or worse abuses in their supply chain though

user-te2g.....I am afraid that your first-hand experience nor my citing reports in the press decades ago doesn't count for much with catwalk lady...unless we can prove it with bona fide peer examined experiences .....no wonder brands went on a rampage selling to those bona fides shoddy work.....

Loro Piana is owned by the company as Dior, LVMH

yeah then they sell you a sweter for 6k :D ridiculous

Don't be quick to point the finger at "LUXURY". Toothpaste, underwear, water, lotions, gum, vitamins even, are no different. We've been lied to about Everything.

Especially under the LVMH. I know Hermés actually gave bonuses for their craftsmen when the business went good

Fashion industry is known for exploiting at all price ranges. Doesn’t matter if the factory is domestic or overseas. They are sweatshops. You would think these big houses will pay them decent. It’s been like that for half a century. Even in the food industry when you dine at a Michelin star where you pay $200 for your entree. The workers who prepare the food and clean up for you get paid terribly and they work in unsafe conditions. People always feel bad for the waiters and the waitresses but they often forget the ones who peel those potatoes, chop the meat etc. they don’t get appreciated and they are forgotten.

@@user-te2jj9jh4f yesss....and nobody refuses a Michelin meal even though knowing that behind the glitzy fassade there is exploitation going on...just read Antony Bourdain's books....

The fact that people know but still continue spend obscene amounts at this point baffles me. I refuse to buy anything from these brands or go to "Michelin star" restaurants. I get better portions and food for cheap at food trucks

Many of these these luxury brands are saturnist! They don’t care about people and it is also about money laundering probably! I won’t be surprised that all these powerful companies like lvmh are being taken down for something much deeper like child trafficking as well probably.

Haiz. LVMH is too big. Many brands are under them, like Sephora etc. need to find other substitutes if want to stop buying from the group. :/

Now you know how the mega-rich get richer: on the backs of impoverished illegal migrant workers who have no legal rights or recourse. The luxury sector conglomerates are taking advantage of these EU immigration loopholes. So disgusting and beyond the pale. Plenty of blame to go around here!

@@cat-bi2qn yeah. Unfortunately you’re right. I’m definitely going to try and go out of my way to avoid supporting any of their brands. Of course it would take many more people to do the same which realistically losing a lone customer like me won’t hurt them, it takes many to even make a small dent. 😔

Spread the word, educate our mommy friends and our daughters. $300-$400 could get you something cute, anything north of that to $1k is a splurge. Over $1k, not worth it. These companies charging $3k on a bag have no shame on their ethics.

I’m done. I’m currently on vacation with my genuine leather vintage bag that cost me $6.99. I have a closet lots of expensive luxury bags and been selling.

That has been going on for years no?

Yes, for most brands it has always been like this. But so far there have mainly been journalistic investigations in Tuscany where many of the Italian companies have been sold to the Chinese community which is very present in the area. It seems that the only ones that produce internally are LV and Hermes, the others rely on external suppliers. It amazes me that Armani doesn't monitor because he has always professed to be very sensitive to social and environmental issues.

I'd Love your take on this. I wonder what year this started. I bought 2 Dior bags in 2019.

Made in France only means it was finished in France. 90% of the bag could have been assembled somewhere else.

Unfortunately, it will blow over soon and it will be business as usual. Same as for the fast fashion ones

I never heard that about the Sezane. Will research.

Or the balaciaga situation!

Exactly. Not entirely surprising but still appalling. I’m with you.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. To be fair, some of us can afford all of the above - the vacations, the kids’ summer camp, and a nice little slice of luxury for those who enjoy it. Luxury means something different to everyone. It’s quite personal how we choose to spend our money. However for those of us who enjoy luxury fashion, when news like this comes out, most of us are quite turned away. And I think consumers nowadays want to make educated purchases. We know we’re paying for marketing hype in some cases. But to find out we’re paying for labor abuse and ugliness, that’s another story.

Interesting

yes replicas are getting insanely good. with the help of AI too

Interesting, thank you for your perspective and for the book suggestion!

It sounds like they will continue with expanding investigations across Italy, which I take as a move in the right direction.

Heard the perfume industry exploits child labor.

I agree it’s sad.

What bothers me is that Dior especially creates so many videos and visuals of their “artisans” working in their workshops… carefully hand stitching every corner of their bags… if you look at the Dior website, they often highlight behind the scenes of how their bags are made. And then this news comes out - and it’s just the complete opposite of the image they’re putting out there.

Ok so a lady Dior might cost 500$ and the mark up is 12x when they sell them for 5500$

Yes it’s the labor cost. Why is a worker sleeping in the factory around the clock, with removed safety measures, and then getting paid 53 euros for something that will sell for many times more than that? We know marketing and retail overhead costs will add to the overall cost to get the bag into consumer hands, but why is Dior allowing their suppliers to fail inspection audits multiple times and turning a blind eye to these poor working conditions when they can absolutely demand better conditions and pay higher wages by cutting into their massive profits just a little bit.

I believe that 53 euros example was to show how little the worker gets compensated for constructing a bag that is then sold for thousands. Obviously there are marketing/advertising costs on top, which is probably where a huge part of luxury brands’ budgets go to - celebrity endorsements and such, to keep the hype alive. So the cost to get the bag into the consumer’s hands will be much more than 53 euros but the upsetting part is that Dior/LVMH is pocketing so much of the profits when they could instead be treating their workers and suppliers better, paying them better wages etc. It’s the quintessential corporate greed scenario which is just ugly. I’m with you. On some level, I of course knew that luxury brands were charging a premium for the hype, BUT I assumed that behind the hype was also some decent, ethical practices. Afterall, as I said in the video, “luxury” should also mean class and sophistication, in my mind, this news about Dior feels low class and vulgar. Thanks for your support of the video!

I agree, we really can’t allow ourselves to become numb to news like this.

Oh interesting! Thank you for sharing this.

The wealthy wear whatever they like.

The lack of response speaks volumes.

It’s been in practice for decades. We call it sweatshops in NY. There were so many from 1970’s to 1990’s in the garment district and in Chinatown. We turned a blind eye on the workers’ well being. My mother was in that environment for 15 years. She raised two kids with a sewing machine. She is an expert seamstress but she vows to never teach us how to sew. She needed the job but hated it. It was earning enough to buy canned food or else we become homeless. It was labor exploitation. When Clinton was in office in the early 2000’s, he moved these labor jobs to offshore such as Cambodia, Vietnam, and China.

The suppliers failed previous audits yet the relationship with Dior continued. It’s true that visibility is limited when work is outsourced to smaller suppliers however, a massive company like Dior with LVMH as their parent company would easily make it mandatory for all suppliers to follow strict labor guidelines for best-in-class ethical treatment of their workforce etc. It can be done, but only if it’s made a priority and let’s be honest, the financial incentives are not aligned.

I agree. At the very least, we’d hope that these big brands would protect their brand reputation by upholding decent labor practices and doing the right thing but perhaps now we know too much to expect this. Perhaps it’s time to shift away.

Such a shame

Oh yea the leather man. basically material is $50 plus all the other stuff including markups, a hang bag should not cause more than $200. It is a leather bag. It holds things. Other than that what purpose does it serve?

I have these kinds of “nameless” bags you mention but they’re not as easy to find. No marketing hype, which is a good thing, but at the same time, that means they’re quite under the radar. I found a few gems through my travels by going to local artisan workshops and doing research. I’m with you. Brand names do not equate to quality.

Yes,I think so too. There are now more Chanel made in Italy than in France.

Quality decline has been evident for years, I agree. Although I do believe that even mass production is possible without labor abuse. I would think the luxury sector would want to serve as a model for world class treatment of their workforce, but no, this is just sad. Removing safety measures, overlooking failed audits, underpaying workers, overworking around the clock… all just a mess.

​@@hellocatwalkcity Luxury brands should lead by example. As you mentioned, quality has declined, and now there are reports of labor abuse. Thank you for sharing this information. I hope you are correct that mass production can be possible without labor abuse and with ethical practices. Also, thank you for highlighting lesser-known or understated luxury brands. We can support these lesser-known brands, which hopefully have higher ethical standards, are less flashy, offer good quality, and are not excessively priced.

Yes I feel you. I think many of us feel quite appalled. There have been talks in the past about how some of the fakes come from actual legit production sites where they produce the real and the fake bags all in the same location or at least with the same workers trained by the brands. Some people are going as far as to say that buying from the brands are the same as buying fakes… but I disagree. At least the legal production sites can be audited, inspected, regulated etc. Perhaps not done well, but at least there is some legal oversight and news like this comes out when authorities discover horrific working conditions. But with the fakes, there is zero legal oversight since they are going outside the law, right? Anyway… it’s really a shame. At the end of the day, this is about poor labor being taken advantage of for the profit of big companies. And how “luxury” marketing is truly mostly hype, which we knew on some level, but this is just yuck.

It really is yuck. My heart breaks for the workers. I agree with everything you said. I am horrified that this may be more wide spread than we even want to think about. 😢

So true. One problem. It's not just Dior, it's darn near EVERYTHING.

@@mindbodysoul8214 agree

Yes and mentioned, these suppliers had multiple failed audits but it seems Dior kept using them.