The only way not to be made a fool of is to buy as cheaply as possible – if you can stomach the eco damage. Better still, do without altogether
As a student in the late 1970s, my aunt worked in a biscuit factory. The story subsequently whispered from sister to cousin to mother to daughter goes like this. The same biscuits – the exact same biscuits – made their way down the conveyor belt into different boxes with different labels; in short, fancy biscuits were not actually any fancier at all. And yet despite this first-hand, eye-witness testimony, no one in my family could deny that one type of biscuit did in fact taste far superior to the rest: the broken ones my aunt was allowed to take home to her siblings for free after a shift.
It’s never been a secret that the true value of “stuff” is context-dependent. Most things are only worth what we’re willing to pay for them – and when it comes to luxury brands, consumers might suddenly be a lot less willing.
In retaliation to Donald Trump’s turbulent tariffs, Chinese TikTokers are whispering about their own biscuits. “More than 80% of the luxury bags in the world are made in China, but those luxury brands just won’t acknowledge that,” said one unidentified factory owner in a widely shared video. “They take almost finished bags from [our] factories back to their own factories and just do the repackaging and logo-installing.” Commenters beg for links to buy such handbags directly for a fraction of the price, while downloads of the Chinese commerce app DHgate have shot up 940% in the US.
The truth of the matter – if the truth, these days, does matter – is more complicated than many now-deleted videos make it seem.
Some brands, such as Louis Vuitton, exclusively make their products in Europe and the US. Gucci claims that 95% of its manufacturers are based in Italy, seemingly hoping we don’t question the remaining 5%. Other labels have had to open up about the fact that their goods are made in China, but they selflessly warn their customers not to be fooled by nasty, nasty counterfeit dupes that are increasingly indistinguishable from the real thing.
Overall, despite the increased attention, a lot of luxury production remains opaque, which means it’s hard to convince customers that they’re not being ripped off. Arguably, a £20,000 handbag has never seemed more worthless.
Pity, then, the second-richest man in the world. Bernard Arnault, chief executive of the luxury goods company LVMH, generously gave Ivanka Trump a free Givenchy dress for her father’s inauguration, which Arnault attended with the chief executives of Dior and Moët Hennessy, that is: two of his children. LVMH manages 75 brands – from Louis Vuitton to Fendi to Tiffany & Co – but alas, in mid-April, the company’s shares plunged dramatically after a 3% decline in year-on-year sales.
It’s alleged that Frenchman Arnault is buddying up to Donald Trump to avoid punitive tariffs and that he is open to moving more manufacturing to the US. It would be kind, then, if people could stop making TikToks about cut-price Chinese dupes. After all, won’t somebody please think of the conglomerates?
‘As costs climb, quality hasn’t. In fact, it’s largely declined’
Fashion writer Katharine K Zarrella
It would be extra kind, while we’re here, if you could also avoid mentioning that Trump already cut the ribbon on a new Louis Vuitton factory in Texas in 2019 – and that the company itself admits that one former manager there turned a blind eye to production defects. In April, Reuters published an exposé claiming that the factory struggles to find skilled leather workers locally. Former employees even admitted to concealing faults in the handbags they made. Might “Made in America” become the new shorthand for shoddy goods?
When it comes down to it, there are only three types of people in this world: those who buy designer labels, those who buy fake designer labels, and those who are baffled by both of them. Rarely does a story come along that can unite all three of them, but here we are, with rumblings from all corners that luxury goods are overpriced. Trump has said that he’d like to be remembered as a “peacemaker and a unifier”, so we must all congratulate this early success.
And yet, we can’t just blame Trump. Increasingly it’s becoming apparent that it doesn’t really matter where your goods are made – you can expect them to cost more and be worth less.
Fashion writer Katharine K Zarrella bravely announced in the New York Times last December that she was “betraying the industry to which I’ve dedicated the better part of the past 20 years of my life” because her designer boots fell apart after just a few wears. On social media, consumers complain of cracking leather and chipping hardware. “As costs climb, quality hasn’t. In fact, it’s largely declined,” Zarella wrote. “Luxury is in a death spiral.”
So why should consumers care about what’s “real” and what’s “fake”?
The only way to not be made a fool of is to buy your goods as cheaply as possible, which – I don’t know if you know this – is pretty bad for the environment, often contravening something previous generations used to call “human rights”. It’s a depressing state of affairs. After all, while people might be questioning where they should buy their goods from, they’re not questioning whether they need them at all. Once again the only real winner seems to be consumerism itself.
The details about my late aunt’s biscuit days are lost to the ages – undoubtedly the story isn’t as simple as I remember it, as it hobnobbed its way through family members. But the fact I do remember it, after all these years, says something: the technicalities of the truth hardly matter when a tale is that delicious.
Photograph by Frédéric Soltan/Corbis
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