Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster

by Dana Thomas

Hardcover, 2007

Status

Available

Call number

338.47

Publication

Penguin Press HC, The (2007), Edition: 1St Edition, Hardcover, 384 pages

Description

From the author of Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes - Once luxury was available only to the rarefied and aristocratic world of old money and royalty. It offered a history of tradition, superior quality, and a pampered buying experience. Today, however, luxury is simply a product packaged and sold by multibillion-dollar global corporations focused on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and, above all, profits. Award-winning journalist Dana Thomas digs deep into the dark side of the luxury industry to uncover all the secrets that Prada, Gucci, and Burberry don?t want us to know. Deluxe is an uncompromising look behind the glossy façade that will enthrall anyone interested in fashion, finance, or culture.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member montano

Thomas seems personally embittered about French fashion and luxury houses that have expanded to global brands. Her accounting of mergers and corporate raiding doesn't make a point or for compelling reading.

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LibraryThing member gordon2112

A little boring, long winded history of the luxury business, Interesting bit about the confluence of celebrities and luxury brands but not a whole lot of analysis. Could have been a atlantic monthly article.

LibraryThing member rivkat

Luxury products have democratized greatly, but only at great cost: lower quality, massive outsourcing (Thomas details that EU law governing source disclosure is much laxer than US law, so sellers can import goods from China, rip off the “Made in China” labels, and add “Made in Italy” with

only small manipulations), and a pervasive materialism/consumerism that is connected to the massive overspending of the past few decades. Thomas is nostalgic for true luxury, available only to the wealthiest of the wealthy, not signalled by huge trademarks but by being “in the know.” It’s an interesting book, marred by Thomas’s uncritical acceptance of the industry’s idea that counterfeiting is a big source of terrorist income and sweatshop/slave labor, without ever comparing counterfeit goods to the equally cheap noncounterfeit goods made in the same factories and sold at Wal-Mart. I am much more persuaded that cheap is the problem. And the luxury brands, by buying into the corporate culture that demands 5% growth every quarter, helped spur the very consumerism/brand consciousness/bargain-hunting by both producers and consumers that drives counterfeiting. This is the world they made. Isn’t it wonderful?

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LibraryThing member Matke

Maybe it was fate, I dunno; but I read this from a ship's library as I was on a cruise to Panama when the Haiti earthquake occurred. Those circumstances lent a certain ironic tang to my reading.

The book, which is a fairly seamless compilation of journal articles and notes, discusses the ways in

which the old carriage trade companies have changed their approaches to marketing and to production as they attempt, mostly successfully, to increase profits. The author details what happens when small, exclusive, and proud companies are bought up by large conglomerates with eyes only for the bottom line.

In itself the book was interesting if a bit to journalistic in style to be more than a competent, if brief, study of the subject. Reading it under the circumstances above made me reflect very uncomfortably about what's important in life and why we have this endless urge to spend, possess, and spend some more. It made me depressed about the shallowness of large parts of my own life.

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LibraryThing member pbadeer

I really enjoyed this book. I've never been one overly concerned with labels, but I was fascinated by how these luxury brands have re-invented themselves from the days of "real" couture design to the big business takeovers and the focus on profits. I doubt most of the brands in this book will find

it flattering (particularly Prada who does not come off very well), but others - who have retained their focus on what made them the desirable brand they are (e.g. Hermes, Louboutin) - are highlighted well.

There is a little bit of everything in here - it is not just a list of brands. There is history, finance, society, etc. Highly Recommended

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LibraryThing member henrikll

Some learning of the craftswork and the transformation to mass customization and industralization, but not much shoocking to be told here.

LibraryThing member varielle

Interesting business study of the premier luxury brands. This covers the history and financial challenges of the major couture and luxury brands. It goes into how the commitment to true luxury, quality and exclusivity have diminished due to mergers and acquisitions all in the name of corporate

profit.

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LibraryThing member wyvernfriend

It's interesting how things change slightly since this was written, some of the larger companies have changed and what's considered luxury has changed a bit too. This is about how some luxury items have become less luxury and more mainstream, mostly by exploiting cheap labour in poorer countries

and also how some of the brands have held on to some of their luxury status and still employ artisans to make some items. It's fascinating and interesting and well worth a read.

This edition was published in 2008 and things have changed somewhat in some companies since.

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LibraryThing member Smokler

Strong, well-argued social and business history. Makes you think and contains about 19 bits of little trivia you must share with friends. Luxury is both central and scarcely the point. Asks the larger question of "what happens when something admired by the few is suddenly within the reach of the

many?"

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LibraryThing member dcunning11235

A reasonably well-written book, though some chapters read more like a collection of vignettes and less like a cohesive, continuous narrative/exposition.

A very frustrating book for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the author clearly loves fashion and the history of fashion, and luxury (or at least the

concept of luxury) and it's history; I, however, find much of this... tasteless. It is consumerism and gaudiness dressed up (pun intended, I suppose) in some form of respectability. But I recognize this is, at least in part, a purely personal view (though, I stress, only in part.)

Secondly, the author seems to find the "democratization" of luxury to be... problematic. I guess I was looking for more of a strong voice/opinion; much of what she describes is not new, but her description definitely leaves one feeling... repulsed, disgusted. And yet she never quite condemns it, which I found myself increasingly frustratedly waiting for.

Thirdly, she documents a bit of "true" luxury, discussed the rise on new luxury classes, again without ever really pointing out forcefully how the uber-rich in e.g. Russia or China are tied to endemic, state-tied corruption and brutal repression. It is mentioned more in passing... e.g., toward the very in end of the book, there is a quote from a Chanel representative (I believe it was Chanel) who interjects into her comment that these people's money isn't "dirty," betraying a self-awareness on the part of the representative that that kind of thing is in fact an issue.

The discussion on counterfeiting is also frustrating. The author's examples clearly illustrate the terrible consequences of piracy, that is it is emphatically not a victimless crime. I guess I couldn't help but feel I was left waiting for the other shoe to drop (pun... or not?) The insatiable hunger that drives people want "luxury" labels is on a straight line to this behavior, if at one more remove; where was the discussion of the elephant in the room?

I guess this last is what really bothered me, throughout the book. Everywhere the consumerism, greed, shallowness that the entire "luxury" industry -old and new forms- is built on, and yet it is left largely half said. Perhaps this on purpose. But it bothered me so much.

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