If, like French fashion house Balmain, you can sell a ripped cotton tee-shirt for more than 1,000 euros, you might wonder if there's any price your well-heeled customers won't pay.
It's a question the luxury industry has been posing for years as it skipped through the financial crisis in diamond slingbacks...
— From Faster, Higher, Stronger: Luxury Pricing Goes for Gold at The New York Times.
Interesting article! At the end I couldn’t stop that little voice in the back of my head from whispering “See! The rich really WILL get richer!” I was really intrigued by the bits concerning LVMH and the price point issues they face. That sounds like an article, if not a magazine epose all it’s own.
I think many brands — Hermes, Amouage, Chanel, Tom Ford — are in this same boat. They can’t go too low on their exclusive lines.
A thousand euros for a ripped cotton tee-shirt? Let me channel my grandmother here: “Some people have more money than sense.”
Whenever I read an article about luxury brands, I’m often reminded of Dana Thomas’s great book, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster.” One of her points is that luxury brands used to mean brands that hand and custom made products, which most by far no longer do. Is it still a luxury product if it’s mass-produced? Are people paying money for the quality of the product or for the prestige of the brand name?
Yes, great book! And with perfume, it’s pretty apparent that you’re paying for prestige.
What has to be understood with these news stories about crazy prices for ridiculous objects is that there is so much ” money” in the world now, that it can’t be collateralized. Money is a pscyhological phenomenon, it has no basis in reality until it is collateralized, or exchanged for something tangible. Today that means there are too many euros/dollars/yuan chasing too few actual goods. It’s leprachaun money, in that if it isn’t converted to something tangible, it will, in time, dwindle and disappear. So that means that sales of $500,000 watches and $3,000 bottles of perfume will be seen for awhile, until the whole house of cards crashes. Scary, but true.
Thanks!
I could be wrong but I believe that all the tearing, paint splattering, studding, beading, etc on Balmain’s clothes are done by hand. It’s not really comparable to the clothes that most people wear, which are made in sweatshops.
I’m sure that’s true, that it cost more to make.
thank you krokodilgena! i’ll take overpriced luxury fashion (and fragrance) over factory-produced, mass market chain-store merchandise any day. the cost to the environment of fast fashion and cheap products is huge. they are made in enormous quantities, most of which get thrown into landfills. even the consumers who buy them replace them often because they’re so cheap. i would rather buy one beautifully made, thoughtfully designed perfume or piece of clothing per year than 50 outfits from forever 21 or scents from victoria’s secret.
And a ripped t-shirt isn’t that ridiculous. I have a pair of tights with little tears that spiral around the legs. I didn’t pay $100 for them, but they’re the most expensive tights that I own. I’ve worn them quite a bit and they still look exactly as they did when I bought them 5 years ago. Altho maybe this isn’t the best example because they aren’t just random holes and they look like they were done by lazers or something.
Btw, I think this is the Balmain t-shirt they were referring to. I’m generally not opposed to the idea of paying more for luxury, but I have to admit this t-shirt isn’t special.
http://www.net-a-porter.com/product/65937
one of my favorite singers (my gravatar actually) has that t-shirt and some fans were offended and said they’d never buy any music from him again if that’s what he spends his money on.
Some people like that kind of aesthetic.
I’m all for subjectivity when it comes to taste: I just don’t understand why he didn’t buy an almost identical looking shirt from someone homeless instead of donating a small fortune to Balmain…
He used to wear stuff like when he was a wee lad that he made himself so some people were wondering why he would spend so much. I guess because when he was living in a small village in Saxony-Anhalt (formerly part of East Germany) his life was devoid of any glamour and now he gets to buy designer clothes and pay to have other people tear his shirts for him.
And a shirt from a homeless man was…already worn out and the quality of the shirt is probably lower (the material, the sewing, etc).