MENU: 2.2. Brands take over the historic center
"I HOPED TO FIND INDEPENDENT CREATORS WITH A POINT OF VIEW, BUT ALL I SAW WAS BRANDS"
-- New York lawyer
"You've discovered the rue de Sèvres!" said a cousin when it was a street for couture at affordable prices, but now one finds brands alone:
Rue de Sèvres facing métro Sèvres-Babylone
Brands raise prices exponentially: A friend working for a well-known name was stupefied when an invoice showed wares produced in Bangladesh marked up 2000%.
Made in Bangladesh by Rubayat Hossein with Rikita Shimu, 2019
The movie begins with a fire in a workshop and continues with the difficulty of union organizing, especially for women (for a résumé, please click and scroll down).
- " 'Virtually entire' fashion industry is complicit on Uighur forced labor, say rights groups:" headline in The Guardian.
- The environmental impact is often disastrous. "Responsible" production is rarely verified.
- Quality can be cut when it hurts the bottom line.*
*A Dior lipstick fell apart after I used it twice. A coat bought for 700€ at un upscale department store (Le Bon Marché), did not fit professional production standards. The wife of the former director of the Établissement Michel (hatter bought by Chanel) said that commercial directors were not trained in crafts and might not know the effects of their cost-cutting decisions.
Clients whose wealth is recent may not know know what quality is and when they buy for the label, do not care.
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"Oh, today I’m wearing a Rolex..." begins an article of The New York Times*
* Considered the most respected American newspaper.
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-- The New York Times, by Andrew Zucker, Jan. 20, 2024
Finishing with wares "...that most people can only dream of owning" suggests that the writer thinks them worth their price.
Photo gone from the web, March 2025, cropped
As announcements of social status
that has been recently acquired,
they probably are.
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Brands' impact on Paris
and shopping that makes more sense
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