The Curious Economics of Luxury Fashion: Millennials, Influencers and a Pandemic
About this book
This is the third edition of the book updated to 2022. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit Ball, run by Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, is the most difficult-to-obtain ticket for any cultural event in America— in spite of being a hundred thousand dollar, tickets + outfit evening. The size of the logo on a Louis Vuitton handbag is inversely related to its price; less expensive bags have larger logos, the most expensive has the smallest (those who matter to the owner recognize the tiny logo; those who don’t, don’t matter). Luxury fashion conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy is the second most valuable company in the European Union, after Royal Dutch Shell. In The Curious Economics of Luxury Fashion, economist and bestselling author Don Thompson offers these and other insights and fascinating examples in discussing the intriguing and fast-evolving world of luxury fashion. Why does one handbag sells for five times the price of another that looks and feels pretty much the same? How does a luxury label justify a runway show costing many millions of dollars, when most of the outfits paraded will never appear for sale? Why are fall fashions shown on the runway in March, and spring fashions in October? The book includes stories of the people and workings of luxury fashion, from New York, London, Paris, Milan—and in the rapidly growing markets of China. It includes a chapter on “Death by Amazon and AI”, the inroads and existential threat of Amazon to the luxury fashion world as it previously existed.