Customer Reviews

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Full Disclosure: I write about fashion, entertainment and celebrities for a living and have known Dana Thomas for a decade or more. I knew she was working on a book about luxury (yawn) and for the past three years, she was always exhausted, trotting off to China, Milan, Grasse or Lake Como, sometimes popping into my hood in Hollywood, constantly doing research for the book.

But frankly, I'm not a big designer brand buyer and would sooner plunk $400 on a Pottery Barn couch than a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes. So I never imagined how engrossed i would be by this book. In fact, I was shocked.

Dana makes this elitist world come alive by putting luxury in a historical context (Caesar wore only silk togas and the Senate was POed at the expense!) and taking the reader with her on a personal journey behind the scenes and around the world, to find out the sad truth about the decline of the luxury goods industry.

It's utterly fascinating and engrossing. And it's funny! Dana has a wicked snse of humor and pulls no punches in describing the decadent denizens of the "Deluxe" world. Even if you know nothing about fashion, couldn't tell a Gucci bag from a Prada purse, and don't own a single designer knockoff product, this book will fascinate, educate and entertain. Plus any book that can make me put down the last Harry Potter - in the middle! - has to be some kind of good read.

at corporate I would get a little slap on the wrist for writing this review since I work for one the brands heavily mentioned in this wonderful book.

I entered the world of luxury goods last year for an Italian brand that even it's "epicenter" store is elusive without the name of the store on Rodeo Drive. What Dana Thomas has written about the luxury brands is eye opening and condemning. From the factories in China, Santee Alley in the Downtown Los Angeles and the country side of France, you get the insiders view on how indeed luxury lost its luster. Once considered lavish and extravagant, we now see what luxury brands have done to diminish the quality and service of these high end stores and at great cost. No one walks into Gucci and buys a $2000 handbag expecting it to be made by an under paid teenager in China only to have the tag changed once it is in the companies possession to "made in Italy" for adding a handle. Small couture brands exist that retain a sense of dignity by continuing the art of exclusivity, style and hand made products that are still created and made where the tag states they're from. Even Hermes, a brand that continues to grow steadily, has retained its heritage and luxe by hand making made to order handbags and saddles.

Aside from the investigative interviews and reports on luxury's current state, you also get history lessons on the birth of luxury from Alexander the Great's wardrobe, how Chanel No 5 came to be and the creation of the "Birkin" bag for Jane Birkin by Hermes. Witty, insightful and damning, you can't help but feel drawn into this book hoping that it never ends. But all good things come to an end and what I was left with was a sense of doubt and a bit of anger. As I stand in floor full of runway dresses, shoes and bags I wonder how much are these really worth? When a client complains in the future about her bag falling apart in a few days and asks, "What are your bags made in China?" in the back of my mind I will think yes it indeed could have been made in China.

I heard Dana at a reading last night in NYC and HAD to buy her book. I then stayed up until 2:00am reading it... and finished it this afternoon. A true fashion insider (Paris correspondent for Newsweek), Dana has the job I think we all wish we had -- covering the couture shows, getting the "real" inside scoop on what goes on behind the fashion curtain (as it were). The stories are here, and they are all real, since Dana knows all the players -- LVMH, Marc Jacobs, Galliano, Prada...

She tells us the stories behind all the luxury items we covet -- Chanel No. 5 perfume, that Prada bag, that Dior evening dress. And most importantly, WHY we covet them. You might never walk down 57th Street, or Rodeo Drive, or Bond Street, and see the stores quite the same way.

Impeccably researched, highly informative, fast paced -- this is on my gift list for all my pals this year. A great read...

By exposing the deteriorating quality and mass marketing of many so-called luxury goods, Dana Thomas has driven home a truth--if EVERYBODY has it, no
matter how much it costs it's no longer a luxury item. Today, the malls are jammed with women of every economic strata proudly brandishing (mostly fake and a few real) LV bags. They are logo soldiers in LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault's LV army. Though it's usually easy to spot the fakes (LV's not upside down on the reverse) the bags are so ubiquitous that it hardly matters anymore.

Hermes is one of the few large companies that still gets it right. Smaller leather goods makers and perfumers such as Valextra and Lorenzo Villoresi continue to carry the torch. One complaint is that many of these smaller companies were not mentioned in the book. Superb quality and true luxury will always be there if you know where to look.

For some, luxury still means exclusivity; as Thomas points out, wealthy cognescenti will continue to quietly raise the bar by seeking out rare items of exquisite quality, leaving the "mass affluents" behind in logo purgatory. Of course, the hoi polloi will be giddily buying "luxury" bags that the upper crusties wouldn't be caught dead with.

There is some justice in all this. With all her vast wealth and power, Delphine Arnault cannot carry an exquisite, handmade Hermes bag,(at least not in public.) Poor thing! She's stuck with her daddy's lackluster, "McLuxury" brands.

I deduct one star for the typos: this is UNFORGIVABLE in a book about the decline of quality.

Dana Thomas makes a convincing case that true luxury (craftsmen making the best product they can) is fading fast as big companies take over luxury firms and have products made in China and other countries. The luxury companies have forgotten their original mission and now sell status to the middle class. In the last few pages of the book, Thomas describes what the truly rich now buy. (Yes, it's different and no the middle class can't afford it.)

Despite the author's credentials the book isn't especially well written or well edited. It could be shorter without losing anything and is filled with typos which, as others have noted, is troubling in any book but especially one that focuses on quality. The book is well researched, however.

Still worth reading in my opinion.

Dana Thomas has written a fascinating book about the manufacturing, marketing, and acquiring of very high-end luxury items, and how that world has changed. As the internet and our economy has produced more and more wealthy citizens, high-end goods have become more affordable for more people. The industry that provides those goods has responded to the increasing demand in ways that have probably changed this industry forever.

Knock-offs are knocked-off these days, and the finely crafted hand-tailored goods one used to expect from certain labels or brands no longer exist. Dana takes the reader into the street of China, and into backroom sweatshops where underpaid workers produce goods that still bear those labels but no longer offer the quality associated with those labels.

It's the classic story of the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor, perhaps taking some of the luster off the pleasure of those designer purchases you've either made or look forward to making. And if that doesn't do it for you, there's a better than even chance these days that the designer goods you purchase, aren't genuine as the knock-off business just keeps growing and growing.

This book is an extremely welldone insider's tell-all on the designer industry, where it's been, where it is now, and where it's likely headed.

This book certainly makes a person who loves the idea of high-end name brands to really step back. It's a great insight as to what drives our compulsion to have the "luxury" items.

Diane

I had wanted to read this book for some time before I purchased it, and it exceeded my expectations. As a luxury brand consumer since my childhood, it really opened my eyes to just what I have really been spending my money on. I'll never look at another $1500 purse the same way again, and I foresee becoming a much more discerning customer before spending my hard earned money.

A fascinating read on what has happened to the mass merchandising of designer labels, an area that was once considered the domain of the well-to-do. Definitely a recommended read! (Note: publisher needs to check a little more closely for typos.)

This is quoted from an article that enticed me to buy the book:

"With Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, Ms. Thomas -- who has been the cultural and fashion writer for Newsweek in Paris for 12 years -- has written a crisp, witty social history that's as entertaining as it is informative. Traveling from French perfume laboratories to Las Vegas shopping malls to assembly-line factories in China, she traces the evolving face of the luxury goods business, from design through marketing to showroom sales.

She gives us some sharply observed profiles of figures like Miuccia Prada, who was a Communist with a doctorate in political science when she took over her family's small luxury goods business in 1978, and the business tycoon Bernard Arnault, who relentlessly built LVMH into a luxury monolith with dozens of brands (including Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Dior) sold around the world.

Ms. Thomas peppers her narrative with lots of amusing asides about everything from how orange became Hermès's signature color because it was the only color widely available during World War II to the money-saving benefits of raw-edge cutting, which has been marketed to the public as a cutting-edge, avant-garde innovation."

Bottom line: Highly recommended to anyone interested in the marketing mindset of luxury products.