Absolutely not and this is part of my gripe. I can appreciate the costs that are incurred in the shipping process, but the price variations can be mind boggling. For example, if you buy a Louis Vuitton wallet in France, you can expect to purchase it for around US$20.00 and upward cheaper than you would in the United States. However, that same wallet will be US$200.00 more in places like Australia and Japan.

Just what is LVMH doing here? Is the price really deserving? What is the actual retail value of the particular wallet?

Breaking into the luxury industry isn’t easy. There are books that offer plenty of advice, however luxury end products often mean older companies. Luxury is also about identity, reputation (real, exagerrated and imagined) and quality (real and plumped up). Idoubt that a fashion chain can transform into a worldwide luxury chain in a year. Charge upward of US$1000.00 for a handbag, and people will ask, ‘Well who are they to charge that much?’ This would be typical question aimed at the new company to charge this amount. Does it relate to the way the open economy is? Does it relate to the high number of sweat shops? If luxury company A is buying its raw goods for a measly amount, charging its labor force another measly amount, then how can the exorbitant retail price be justified? Well, regardless of what luxury sycophants will say in their books, it’s about marketing. Marketing costs.

Last year, it was reported that Louis Vuitton was the most profiteable and identifiable luxury house. This year however, it’s a different story, with LVMH profit being down by 23% . Of course, the company maintains a positive outlook, but they do shave costs in other areas. For example, their advertising campaigns may appear in the first pages of fashion magazines for some months or during the months they are pushing new products.That being said, the Louis Vuitton company within the LVMH umbrella, is the company that carries the umbrella .

But this doesn’t really answer the question in the title of this post. What is a luxury product? Although the quality may be visibly discernible, particularly with Louis Vuitton products, other self-proclaimed luxury end labels cannot say the same for their products. Take fashion house Chloe as one example. I was browsing handbags in a department store recently, and I overheard two women exclaiming their shock. According to them, one of the handbags was more than a thousand dollars cheaper in Hawaii than in Sydney, Australia. Fancy that! A thousand dollar difference. I have to add that the leather quality of the Chloe handbags isn’t that fantastic. Prada isn’t that hot either. For Prada, you’re paying for the metallic logo more than anything else. But they’re all considered luxury fashion.

For me, luxury means one of a kind or a product that you cannot buy anywhere else. Such as a product, whose materials are unique to the fashion house. For example, you can’t find the same quality canvas used by Louis Vuitton elsewhere. Just like you can’t find the same quality ‘Epi’ leather that Louis Vuitton uses, so in that regard, I have to give LVMH credit. But the worldwide price differences for products is annoying to me, and a huge disappointment.

Luxury to me, is not sweatshop labor and poor or average quality materials that are overprice. Example: some of the leather that Prada and Miu Miu uses. But still, it doesn’t answer the question of what a luxury product is. The function and meaning of a luxury product vary from one person to the next.

Luxury products serve to define one person from the next in terms of personal taste, style and more importantly, notions of wealth. Furthermore, you can further define wealth by the amount of luxury products one totes on one’s person. While I consider it tacky for people to wear one designer head to toe, getting the style formula right can work. But personal wealth cannot be measured by luxury apparel and accessories. For example, in the area I live, there are a few shady brothels. Their staff don’t live in mansions or work as CEOs, but they can afford the occasional designer handbag and it’s this affordability of a median priced item that bolsters a consumer’s ego, buying them a dream and that is what luxury is. The dream.

Luxury doesn’t always mean better functionality. After all, a handbag isn’t a car, but it’s about the dream. For example, a fifty dollar wallet with 24 card slots will do the same job as a Louis Vuitton Insolite wallet, but it is hundreds of dollars cheaper, without the obvious LV logo (that denotes status).

Luxury, whether in concept form or as a physical product, is a concept.

Finally someone has come out and said it as it is. Normally Chanel fans or fashion victims refrain from voicing their opinion about the deceased fashion designer.

Personally, YSL created more innovations than Chanel, but the cult of personality prevails and let’s face it, the company does need the profile to sell Karl Lagerfeld’s designs.

The reality, if you have read full biographies and not the rubbish posted on Wikipedia, is that Coco Chanel was a shrewd, not so nice, goal oriented woman. By not so nice, I mean that her morality stretched to accommodate her status. In other words, when France was in the midst of WWII with the Nazi occupation, Chanel didn’t hestitate to have an affair with a Nazi officer.

Audrey Tatau, the actress who plays Chanel in Coco Avant Chanel said to Sky News:

“She was a liar, so it’s difficult to know who she was before she became famous and had some success.”

“She didn’t want to talk about her youth, I don’t know why, maybe she was ashamed or maybe she didn’t want people to feel pity for her because she came from a poor family.”

The label does still make the iconic suit, but it has also become an absurdity with Karl Lagerfeld producing OTT things like footballs and tennis rackets. The question remains: are the sports accessories REALLY worth the price or are you just paying for the two interlocked ‘C’s’?

In the world of celebrities or celebrity fashion, we’re all familiar with the standard question. It’s not a matter of what they’re wearing, but who they’re wearing.

Here, Lady Gaga is wearing Kermit the Frog.

I didn’t know that a swim fashion week existed, but the styles on display this year are eye catching, cute, controversial, mind boggling, sexy and summery. The image above (Ed Hardy swimwear), or the print above, is one of my favorites. Isn’t the birdie pretty? It’s placed in a controversial place, guaranteed to attract attention and if I had a body like the model, I’d pick this print/bikini. In fact, I’d pick them all. On this page are my favorite picks.

The above two bikinis are by Poco Pano, and as you can see, they’re ‘fun’ in the eye catching kind of way.

Below, a pretty bikini by L Space.

I’m not sure if this is a definitive sign, but I’ve just found a bodysuit on net-a-porter’s list of new items.

This fine black wool bodysuit is nice . Sure, it’s YSL so it isn’t cheap. But it’s a great investment. Wool. Black…goes with everything…

But what I adore about bodysuits is that once they’re clipped in place (okay, in the crotch area), they stay in place. They work for any time of the day. A black bodysuit can be worn during the day and jazzed up for cocktail hour.

I don’t mind neckties, but if I buy any, I am quite fussy. It’s all in the craftmanship. For example, I prefer Louis Vuitton neck ties over, say, Ralph Lauren. The quality of the former over the latter is obvious. But it’s quite expensive to pay for, especially when you think that it’s a scrap of fabric.

Necktie Trivia:

• The necktie is traced back to the 1600’s during the Thirty Years war and the word cravat originated during this period as well, and it wasn’t exclusively male attire. Both genders wore fabrics around their necks. Croatian mercenaries wore handkerchiefs around their neck during this time.
• The word cravat is due to the slight variation (in the French language) for the word for Croatian (Hrvati) and the French word Croates. Hence Cravat.
• There are four types of tie knots, with the four-in-hand knot being the most common. The other three are: half Windsor, Pratt and Windsor.
• In the 1990’s two mathematicians, using mathematical modeling concluded that there are 85 possible knots with a conventional tie.
• If you’re stuck on tying a tie, fret not. There is a website for you. How to Tie a Tie has everything you need to know about tying a tie.

The above still is from the film Bounty Hunter starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, but methinks that Aniston’s handbag, the efficient satchel/handbag from Salvatore Ferragamo is also going to be a sales hit.

Check it out here .

She may have been described as one of the most annoying people in the UK, which I’m presuming is related to the spelling of her name. It’s actually pronounced Agnes and is Agnes, but Agyness is yet another trendy approach that is based on numerology? Anyway, Agyness is set to retire from modeling to pursue an acting career, and I guess it’s one way to maintain an accustomed lifestyle. I’m not sure if it’s me, but I think the only ‘aged’ models that are still successful, perhaps reflecting income status, are the Elle’s, Naomi’s and Claudia’s of this world. Other models have had to enter other careers to ensure a high income.

Take Tyra Banks. Sure she was a known model, but during her modeling days, she didn’t eclipse Naomi Campbell or Elle Macpherson.  She moved into television and bingo! She has her own talk show. She has a realitiy show (ANTM) that can be annoying to watch, but works for its car accident type appeal. No matter how vapid or annoying the modeling contestants are on ANTM, you can’t avoid being drawn to the show, the antics and the drama.

Agyness isn’t alone in turning to acting. Other former models include Cameron Diaz and Andie McDowell. For women, acting tends to feature 80% model-like looks. Sure it’s about the acting and so on, but there are few average looking women in Hollywood. And what other way to maintain a great income by working for three months a year for a few cool millions?

What about Bruno? Is Bruno similar? First, the two films are approached differently. Zoolander is a fictional parody. Bruno is a mock documentary of an Austrian fashionista/fashion journalist. The only two things that are in common is the clear vapidity among fashion folk, and although the films highlight ignorance/stupidity, it’s a different form of stupidity that has nothing to do with arithmetic. Many high end fashion designers are still earning millions after the global financial crisis.

Zoolander, released in 2001, is naturally a higher earner than Bruno, but the latter film did do well at the box office in this week , earning $14.2 million.

While Zoolander received more positive reviews for comedy, Bruno has received mixed reviews, so I wonder if people bought tickets out of curiosity. Zoolander features many known actors making cameo appearances, and there are laugh out loud moments with Will Ferrell, Milla Jovovich and Jerry Stiller.

I’m torn between the two. I’m yet to see Bruno, and I’m trying not to read any reviews, but the occasional few have caught my eye. There have been a few reviews from other countries complaining that Sacha Baron Cohen’s approach only highlights stereotype, but fashion can be fickle and it is a fickle industry. How else do people justify handbags that are more expensive than cars for god’s sake?

Anyway…if you have a view on either film, please comment.

How does Elle Macpherson do it at her age? She is 45, and I doubt that other younger models will look like Elle. I can recall reading interviews with Elle years ago. She’d discuss her daily 100 or 200 stomach crunches as well as emphasizing her water intake (somewhere between two and three liters, I don’t remember exactly).

Looking as sophisticated and elegant, it’s no surprise that she was chosen to launch the new Jaguar XJ.