ShopDiary

Luxury Goods Made In China

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

If you haven’t read Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster Dana Thomas, then her recent article on New York Times will be an eye opener. How many times have we heard that luxury goods command high prices as they are crafted by highly skilled artisans in Italy? Well, it turns out that some luxury brands have their products made in China.

In fact, many luxury-brand items today are made on assembly lines in developing nations, where labor is vastly cheaper. I saw this firsthand when I visited a leather-goods factory in China, where women 18 to 26 years old earn $120 a month sewing and gluing together luxury-brand leather handbags, knapsacks, wallets and toiletry cases. One bag I watched them put together — for a brand whose owners insist is manufactured only in Italy — cost $120 apiece to produce. That evening, I saw the same bag at a Hong Kong department store with a price tag of $1,200 — a typical markup.

How do the brands get away with this? Some hide the “Made in China” label in the bottom of an inside pocket or stamped black on black on the back side of a tiny logo flap. Some bypass the “provenance” laws requiring labels that tell where goods are produced by having 90 percent of the bag, sweater, suit or shoes made in China and then attaching the final bits — the handle, the buttons, the lifts — in Italy, thus earning a “Made in Italy” label. Or some simply replace the original label with one stating it was made in Western Europe.

Isn’t that something to consider the next time you covet a luxury designer handbag?