Business
Luxury once meant small, private, family-run houses making goods for a narrow elite, with tradition, superior quality and pampered service as the point. When those houses become billion-dollar firms built on mass production and mass marketing, the rarity and craft that justified the name drain away while the name stays.
Once luxury is run by global corporations chasing growth, visibility, brand awareness and above all profit, the product is bent to serve those numbers. Goods that were once one in a million are made in volume, and clothing built to last no longer does.
Buyers of luxury are paying for a dream of exclusivity and heritage rather than the object alone. When that dream is produced by advertising, celebrity exposure and publicity stunts, the price premium rests on an illusion rather than on anything in the goods themselves.
The glossy surface of a prestige brand can hide where and by whom its goods are actually made. Buyers assume artisan workshops, but production may be outsourced in ways the brand prefers customers not to know about.
Counterfeit luxury goods look like a victimless shortcut to a status symbol. In fact they are tied to sweatshops and violence, so buying a cheap copy feeds real harm.