For those of us who approach the pages of Grazia with queasy greed or suffer a feverish bout of £1,000, Fendi B-bag lust even as every right instinct is shouting, “Just Say No!”, this book is great aversion therapy. At heart, we know luxury brands stink, and not just Gucci Envy or Dior Poison. We suspect we’re being fleeced, but we don’t know quite how or with what cynical dedication.

Well, we do now. Dana Thomas does a fine job of bringing the luxury-goods industry (net worth $157 billion) into forensic focus. Luxury is not, as she points out, a modern commodity. It has existed for as long as man could covet, but until recently it meant bespoke, or at least so many man-hours of labour that it was way out of reach of the average person. Then, in the late 1980s, along came the marketing managers and accessible luxury was born. Prices were high, but just in reach, a fingertip away from the dazzle. It sounded great. Here’s Thomas. “Heck, it sounded almost communist. But it wasn’t. It was as capitalist as could be: the goal, plain and simple, was to make as much money as heavenly possible.”

How? By creating a desire so powerful that, as Tom Ford, the designer and marketing genius behind Gucci, puts it, “It’s like you’ve gotta have it or you’ll die.” What is fascinating is the detail of the manipulation. It’s not just glossy ads or bag-toting celebs that feed our appetites. Take the Japanese and their frenzy for status brands, exploited by magnates who developed vast duty-free stores in Hawaii in cahoots with tour operators. Flights arrive from Japan long before hotel check-in time. Nothing to do but kick their heels or be bussed, preissued with return boarding cards, direct to the huge malls in Waikiki. Once in, the only way out is past every luxury brand in the universe. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Thomas is less sharp on what drives our greed for luxury brands. What is it that makes the Japanese so susceptible? Closer to home, why does the Fendi Baguette or the Marc Jacobs Stam become the It-bag of the season? Sure, there’s product placement – key fashion editors and celebs are sent the new bags, gratis, but even freebies can’t guarantee success. What matters is the buzz on the street. Fashion is a profoundly tribal language, its tom-tom messages intelligible only to the few. Why did the Burberry check spread like a virus? And do Burberry executives really object, as Thomas suggests, or are they secretly throwing their checked caps in the air in glee? As the editor of Elle back in the 1980s, I know Giorgio Armani was privately pleased when the football terraces appropriated his brand, even if the official line was rather more censorious. Money, or even manipulation, can’t buy that level of mass approval.

Thomas is no social scientist. Fair enough, but it means that while her straight reporting is terrific, her attempts at local colour can be unintentionally hilarious. Here she is on chavs: “Young and usually with only a high-school education, chavs hang out at small-town shopping centres, smoke cigarettes, and intimidate passers-by.” They sound sort of sweet in a Happy Days kind of a way, no?

She is fearless, though, about digging dirt. A top-of-the-range bag may be put together using components and manufacturing from every corner of the globe to keep the price down, but if the final finish is done in Italy, it is a Made in Italy bag, with a commensurate price tag. The trend for raw-edge cutting (touted as Japanese avant-garde) is actually often a cost-cutting exercise. See, no expensive lining! She is bracing, too, on the hot air buoying up status labels. “Luxury executives must now conceal from the public not only how their products are made but how individual brands are doing. The truth, if widely known, could shatter consumer confidence.” The truth is that Prada, for example, is not nearly as financially robust as its glossy image suggests. Three public offerings have been abandoned since late 2001 (September 11 hit the luxury market hard), when Thomas notes that Prada reportedly had debts of about $1.9 billion – approximately what it did in sales.

I have been around the fashion industry long enough to know the unit price of a leather handbag (between £50 and £100) and the ever higher markups imposed on them to create an aura of exclusivity. I have sat in Prada’s head office and been routinely insulted by executives (Thomas is good on this) because the magazine I edited was not sufficiently comme il faut. Magazines depend on advertising revenue, and luxury brands are premium advertisers – not only keen to let you know where the power rests but also masters of the playground psychology of creating desire through refusal (no, you can’t be in my gang). In other words, I know the snobbery and fool’s gold only too well. What I did not know was the financial detail, the grubby realities of counterfeiting or the increasing power of so-called luxury manufacturing in China. What this book does is redress the balance in favour of the consumer. When it comes to the international sport of shopping, knowledge truly is power.

Ripped and torn

Dana Thomas knew it was time to investigate ‘luxury’ when her clothes started falling off. ‘In 2002, I bought a pair of cotton-poplin cropped trousers at Prada for $500. I put them on, and the gentle passing of my foot ripped the hem out. I put my hand in the pocket and it tore away from its seam. I squatted down to pick up my two-year-old and the derrière split open. I hadn’t had those trousers on 10 minutes and they were literally falling apart at the seams. I mentioned this to a former Prada design assistant. “It’s the thread,” he told me. “It’s cheaper and breaks easily.” Of course, not all Prada goods are shoddy . ..’

DELUXE: How Luxury Lost Its Lustre by Dana Thomas
Allen Lane £20 pp376
Buy the book here at the offer price of £18 (inc p&p)

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