Why Do Luxury Brands Raise Prices? Because They Can.
Paul Kooiker’s Ethereal Images, Yuima Nakazato’s Couture and Some Rats on the Runway
One of the first things people ask me when they hear I work in fashion is: "Why are those prices so high? How can brands justify a $20,000 bag?". My instinctive response is: "Because they can" but I never utter it. Instead, I simply smile enigmatically as if gatekeeping a precious secret.
Still, I decided to use this question as a prompt for our upcoming newsletter, where I'll be discussing luxury pricing with experts who truly understand the industry. For now, I asked ChatGPT, just for some serious FUN:
Luxury fashion prices are high due to a combination of factors contributing to these products' perceived and actual value.
Then ChatGPT produced an essay listing reasons like expensive branding, craftsmanship, labor, exclusivity, and scarcity.
Not surprisingly though, this question is as old as time. American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen noted at the turn of the 20th century in his The Theory of the Leisure Class book: "It is true of dress, in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption."
He continues: "The commercial value of the goods used for clothing in any modern community is made up to a much larger extent of the fashionableness, the reputability of the goods than of the mechanical service which they render in clothing the person of the wearer. The need for dress is eminently a 'higher' or spiritual need."
This is why ChatGPT is somewhat off the mark. People pay thousands for a Kelly bag or a Chanel suit to signal that THEY CAN. They are wealthy aka part of the world’s elite and want the world to know it even on a spiritual level.
But more next week.
As always, fashion gems follow:
The effortless punk of the images in photographer Derek Ridgers’ new photo book “The London Youth Portraits”.
The enigmatic photo work of Paul Kooiker.
All of Yuima Nakazato’s FW2024 Couture collection.
The first look of @sakurofo’s graduate collection at @ifmparis in collaboration with @gabriel_boudin for the conception of the “ useless chair for outer boys”.
The Masquerade Rat concept by Ksubi 2001 runway collection featuring a front row flooded with 250 rodents.
Last but not least, a million thanks to Fashion Editor Philippa Dimitriadi and madamefigaro.gr for featuring this newsletter. Those of you fortunate enough to read Greek can go and have a look, the article is super interesting.
Til next week:
