Another month, another high-end fashion brand carrying on like it’s Marie Antoinette’s world and we’re just living in it. Selling insanely priced products when more and more of us can’t afford our energy bills, and are worried about AI stealing our jobs.
Can’t make your rent? Never mind!
Pop a pair of The Row’s USD $690 flip flops on your credit card. These genuinely bog-standard rubber thongs just topped Lyst’s quarterly most-searched list. They’re not even natural rubber.
For the love of god Mother Earth (and your bank balance) add a sustainable option from Sea Sense to cart instead. For every pair sold, this UK company pays people on ground to collect ocean-bound plastic.
Now that our sandal needs have been met, can we pls have a chat about value vs. true cost, and corporate skullduggery?
Shhh…. it’s oh so quiet
According to Antoine Arnault, CEO of Loro Piana: "Luxury products are sustainable by nature."
Hmmm. What do we think of that, then?
In case you are not across these names: Antoine is part of the Arnault French retail dynasty. His father, Bernard Arnault is LVMH's big boss, and one of the 10th richest people on the planet.
One moment, let me clarify that: 10 richest men. No women make this list. Mind you two of them are Musk and Zuckerberg, and they aren’t even human, so… 10 richest oligarchs. Anyway…
Loro Piana is a super-high-end Italian knitwear brand, the pin-up for Instagram's 'quiet luxury trend' on the back of Succession-chic. As in the TV show. Offering ready-to-wear for oligarchs of all genders, the brand is famed for its posh cashmere, but does also sell accessories, tailoring even women's swimwear - you can order your whole jet-set wardrobe from them, is you've got deep enough pockets and a high tolerance for beige. In 2013, it became part of the LVMH stable.
That stands for Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy.
It’s the parent company behind the likes of Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, Tiffany and Celine, and an impressive list of wine and spirits, watch and beauty brands. They own Sephora, Benefit, Rihanna's Fenty, even control Paris Match magazine (that’s one way to stop your scandals being plastered across its cover).
In 2023, the group became the first ever European company to surpass USD $500 billion in valuation.
That was also the year that Antoine Arnault made his questionable statement.
I was in Copenhagen to hear it, as was my guest on this week's pod Jasmin Malik Chua.
On stage, with JW Anderson, at 2023's Global Fashion Summit, AA explained that since luxury fashion is "made from the highest quality materials; they are durable; they are repairable. That is what separates us from the rest of the fashion industry.”
Hard truth: just because a fashion item is expensive does not guarantee that it’s been made responsibly.
In a newsletter last year (read it in the archive here), I wrote about the appalling revelation by investigative journos at Bloomberg that Loro Piana had been exploiting Indigenous Peruvian vicuña herders for the the past 30 years. While selling clobber made from this rare and precious fibre for €27,000 (whoaaaa! yes, you read that right). Turns out they’d been paying its producers ZERO euros. As in, no cash at all.
Not much that’s inherently sustainable about that.
Now the brand is back in trouble, this time over worker maltreatment in one of its partner factories in Italy.
Listen to my discussion with Jasmin, who is Sourcing Journal’s Environment and Labor Editor, for the details.
On Spotify:
On Apple:
Suffice to say here, that this is not a one off thing. Nor is it only a repeat stuff-up by LP.
When Dior pays suppliers just $57 to make its $2,800 handbags. When Armani has been similarly dragged through the courts for worker exploitation. When Max Mara was implicated in sweatshop conditions suffered by outworkers in Puglia… The list goes on.
Surely it’s time to support small businesses over these big guys who can’t seem to keep their houses in order, despite having ample resources to do so.
Sincerely,
Clare
Even if I could afford them, I would not buy 690 dollar flip flops, no matter who designed them!
I love my wardrobe choices sourced from Recycle and Op shops!