Tag: ootd

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Fashion

Buying The Alternative Confidence

Handbags

“Luxury bags make your life more pleasant, make you dream, give you confidence, and show your neighbors you’re doing well.” Largerfeld.

As the luxury handbag bubble pops due to working condition and mark-up scandals and over, there are alternatives to big brands. The labels I listed below are small, not mass produced, but more importantly, unique. A person carrying one of these pieces will get a lot of compliments.

While in Milan, walking by Up You To Anthology on my way to a Fashion Week appointment, I decided to go in. After speaking to the curator, he told me each bag is designed by artists with a limited production run.

Anthology
Up To You Anthology

During Pitti Uomo I always pass by the Sentiero Florence store. Looking in the window I decided to go in and see. The sales lady told me about the family owned label still producing handbags in Tuscany.

Sentiero Florence
Sentiero Florence
La portegna
La Portegna Madrid

I am recommending this brand because the online review have been good for this Madrid’s La Portegna. Spanish producers are known for quality leather goods.

Bonastre Paris
Bonastre

I met the Bonastre team at Pitti Uomo. As a small luxury brand the designer and staff have close relationship all aspects of the Paris based label from design to the final product.

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Fashion

That’s A FAKE & We Know It

Handbags

Style moved from Having It to Faking It. As with so many elements in modern life, expensive handbags may not be what you think, fake handbags are stylish. Once a secret, today buyers and influencers proudly display cheap knock offs.

Handbags
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Fashion Feature

Fantasy vs. Reality

The Dior Fantasy is of a handbag made with passion in a stylish factory.

The reality is very different. Dior’s handbags are made mass produced under sweatshop conditions.

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Fashion

More Zara Than Luxury

Dior Saddle

 Luxury industry has adopted the same appalling production model as their fast fashion counterparts. Today, Dior faces charges of exploitative production practices. As the lust for high end products grew the business model changed to satisfy consumer wants. Mass consumption means mass production.  Luxury went from exclusive to inclusive.  Many highly sort after brands morphed into glorified Zaras.

Big fashion companies are integrated entities with huge supply chains needing products to sell. Big profit margins at the expense of quality, the product will suffer from a bottom line decision.  As many shoppers are learning, perhaps the pricey handbag may not be worth the extravagantly inflated price tag. 

Almost on every corner in major cities there is a luxury brand.  In London, seven Louis Vuitton stores are north of the Thames. Buyers fooled themselves into believing they had entitled admittance to a club, when in reality they had been conned.   As the headlines from Italy continue to roll, shock is turning to outrage.   A 56 euros bag selling at 2800 euros rankles. On social media, opinions range from disappointment to disgust. One Korean YouTube Blogger reported local customers are going to the Dior Store asking for their money back or returning bags purchased in the past few weeks.

The Saddle Bag HMMM!

Dior Saddle Bag
Dior Saddle Bag

Does anyone remember when the French House was giving away thousands of Saddle Bags in 2018 to online celebs? As influencers peddled luxury wares, none asked serious obvious questions concerning production techniques or quality. Brand chasers just take the gift, no questions asked.  Watching video after video from “tastemakers” many have labeled accessories in their backgrounds while telling followers about being disillusioned with Dior.  Life is cruel. Stylists loved posting big label overpriced bags on Instagram feeds. Why do brands burn excess unsold stock? Missed clues. Maybe what they were making was not as valuable as we were led to believe.   As an editor I favoured small brands.  The teams have a family feel with real knowledge of their products and production process.

When searching for validation by buying an expensive handbag, let the buyer beware.

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Fashion

How Much? The Dior Markup

Dior Bad

The expression “a sucker is born every minute” applies to luxury fashion these days.  Paris label Dior knows the world wants to belong to the bourgeois club.  Buying an expensive handbag is an arm reach into another social circle.  Emotions of supreme consumption in boutiques satisfies those temporary upward mobility urges was not lost by the fashion’s profit driven machine.

The world’s largest opulent entity, LVMH, learned how to make the desirable more accessible by making it more scarce while producing cheaper products.  A business model earning billions every year. 

When the Italian authorities announced the seizure of a factory producing Dior bag in sweat shop conditions.  Many laborers were illegal.  Beds were in the factory enabling 24-hour production.   According to reports the production site was sourced to produce handbags for the French brand.  Certainly, raised eyebrows hit the ceiling after the announcement of the cost of producing one handbag, 57 euros. The more surprising news is the end price for the aspirational buyer, 2750 euros.  That is a markup of nearly fifty times the production cost. In comparison, an Apple iPhone’s markup cost is double the manufactured price.

Admittedly, this author was not shocked by the news.  During Pitti Uomo, a tannery colleague with a factory located in the same area of LVMH’s facilities told me there were many questionable production techniques involved in the company’s workings. This is not the first time Louis Vuitton has been hit by authorities concerning production. In 2010 UK Advertising Standards Authority banned two misleading ads concerning handmade bags when in reality they were machine made.

At the time of writing the seized factory is under control of the prosecutors.

The next time gazing in front of a Dior window with frivolous desires, remember the quote: “People don’t want the truth because they don’t want the illusions destroyed.”

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Fashion

Vintage Denim History

The history of denim was displayed in Berlin. While walking around a trade fair I came across a stall with vintage jean pieces. The Jeans Museum located in Zurich Switzerland contains over 14,000 pairs of jeans and jackets. Curator Ruedi Karrer is a walking encyclopedia on the textile subject.

The Jeans Museum is on Kochlistr 25. Zurich

contact-reudi@jeansmuseum.org

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Before Tacky Fashion podcast

A Before Tacky Brief

Fashion designer Brett Johnson talks about creativity in this Before Tacky Brief.

Check out the entire podcast here:

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Fashion

Is Paris the Same Place?

Paris Fashion Week

Traveling to Paris for Fashion Week can come across as glamour meets pretentious. However, for this visit, clothing was front and center. We hit some shows, but decided to focus on behind the scenes by getting the low down on the business and trends. Designers, press relations and stores gave us opinions on topics ranging from shopping experiences to the quiet luxury shift. The industry is going through some changes.

Hip Boutique Kith
Boucheron
Ouest
Maison Clerc
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Feature

Pandabuy’s Open Secret

The Fake It Till You Make You culture took a hit on Wednesday.  The Chinese fashion platform Pandabuy got raided by police.  The popular app is known for selling clothing at low prices. The open secret, many fake luxury goods purchased find their way to global influencers.  TikTok accounts littered with newly purchased designer labels displayed with so much glee, even Ryan Gosling would need sunglasses.  Never mind the source of the clothing.  That questionable Dior bag sales for $176 dollars.  Why pay 1500 dollars for the real thing?  Sixty dollars for a pair of Valentino Sneakers is a steal, no questions asked.

Talking to a professional colleague about the Pandabuy story, this reflects the modern zeitgeist.   External validation not with a brand, but with an imitation. Striving for likes and clicks, openly flaunting faketry has no shame.

Recently, while attending some fashion press events, I noticed many Gen Z and Millennials attendees with emblazoned monograms on jackets, shirts and bags. Wondering how so many could afford wearing thousands of dollars on their back, questions answered. The e-commerce site understands its customers.  Pandabuy targets young digital content creators who pitch what to buy.

Shutting down one fake site, “with demand comes sellers.”  

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Before Tacky Cinema Encore entertainment entertainment news Fashion podcast

Talking the Hi & Lo:John Galliano

Hi and Lo: John Galliano

The rise and fall of fashion wonderkid John Galliano was a magical story of success. Championed by industry heavy weights as a visionary, Galliano gave the world frivolity on the runways of Dior. However, under the surface of smiles, showmanship and Champagne toasts lurked an individual coming off the rails.

John Galliano
Designer John Galliano

Academy Award winning director Kevin Macdonald stripes away the gloss, putting the former Givenchy fashion house head front and center of a documentary film about a man trying to his road to redemption.

Check out the Before Tacky Podcast on the film.