BEFORE you reach for the plastic to buy one more $1,000 handbag, reach for "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster" by Dana Thomas, a Paris-based Newsweek reporter and former model. What "Fast Food Nation" did for food service, this book does for fashion, exposing the underbelly of the $157-billion luxury industry and the lockstep consumer psychology behind its glamorous veneer.
What could the Big Mac and the Vuitton Speedy bag possibly have in common? Both are products of global corporations with an emphasis on profits over prestige, both are backed by massive advertising campaigns, both are about creating a craving for something that confers an identity.
Thomas writes with an outsider's fascination of the label-obsessed. She wonders at the prostitutes in Tokyo who prefer to be paid in designer goods, and tourists who would rather shop the duty-free galleria during their vacations in Waikiki than enjoy the sun and sand. And really, when forced to confront our own credit card demons, how many of us discover we have spent more than we should have on a Prada this or that?
Although we think we are buying fine craft, quality, heritage and a pampered buying experience, what we are really getting is as devoid of substance as a junk food meal. To make luxury accessible, Thomas writes, the tycoons have stripped away what made it "luxury" in the first place.
Today, 35 major brands control 60% of the business. They are not run by the original founders. And the designers themselves are disposable, as we saw with the ouster of Tom Ford at Gucci. Most luxury brands are helmed by tycoons, like Bernard Arnault, president of Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, who create "perfectly good products," Thomas said in a telephone interview, "but not dreams." Today, luxury is prepackaged in identical stores (many designed by Peter Marino). Brands fight their way into our consciousness with massive advertising campaigns, over-the-top fashion shows, celebrity mannequins on the payroll and seasonal "It" bags with an average markup of 10 to 12 times the actual price.
Luxury is available at every price level, at outlet malls, online, in dusty discount storefronts. And it is this soulless expansion of the luxury market, Thomas suggests, that could be its ruin.
