Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

A company selling luxury Veblen BS mostly made in sweatshops outside of Europe. Fitting.

Can't vouch for the whole group but the outside Europe part is 100% not true for Louis Vuitton which is by far the biggest brand in the group. Obviously not true for the wines and spirits and retailing too.

> The Louis Vuitton leather goods collections are exclusively produced in our workshops located in France, Spain, Italy and the United States.

https://en.louisvuitton.com/eng-nl/faq/products/eu-where-are...

Edit: Of course my Europe comment is not quite right as some made in the US too.

Louis Vuitton brand alone might not, but LVMH is an umbrella brand whose brands do manufacture in China.

Even for Louis Vuitton, having them in Europe is about sweatshop-washing, plus some nice "main" workshops to show to the press, Potemkin village style.

And such wordings "The Louis Vuitton leather goods collections are exclusively produced in our workshops located in France, Spain, Italy and the United States" are worth almost nothing, given how lax the law is for businesses saying such things. There are "percentages" allowed (if X% is being made in Y, you can still call the product made in Z, even if it's the hardest/more work intensive part), there are tricks like naming where you do the final assembly, even mere final packaging in some cases.

And you can always just recreate nice sweatshop style environments domestically, complete with migrant labor, below minimum wage, threats, and so on:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boohoo-leice...

https://us.fashionnetwork.com/news/made-in-italy-by-chinese-...

Not that it's better for other brands:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-wo...

https://ameli-zurich.com/en/blogs/ameli/made-in-italy-vs-100...

I personally know some subcontractors for LVMH who work on the pieces with complex perforation. They receive the leather from Italy and everyone handling it is effectively in France with the salary matching a company using state of the art processing. Most of their other customers are actually industrial companies.

What you are peddling in this comment thread is utter garbage and so untrue it’s laughable. It’s clear you have an axe to grind but very little idea of what you are actually talking about.

Yes, I'm sure your personal relation to those subcontractors (or specific "complex perforation" parts nonetheless) trumps the New Yorker and Guardian and others reporting.

Thanks for the ad hominem and rude tone by the way.

Here's how "laughable" it is: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/17/revealed-th...

They trump nothing. The article you quote merely point that part of the production is done in Romania. I am eagerly awaiting for you to support your claims about sweat shops and South East Asia. That's probably going to be hard of course considering it's complete non sense.

> Thanks for the ad hominem and rude tone by the way.

Entierely deserved. Being an idiot is one thing, insulting an entire industry you clearly have no idea about another. I have no respect for you and you are not showing me anything which would convince me I should.

None of those articles mention LV at all.

Neither does TFA or my initial comment. This is about LVMH not VH alone.

Not that LV has a much better history:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/17/revealed-th...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/fashion/italy-luxury-shad...

Bonus LVMH:

"The report also found that the world’s largest luxury brands are among the worst offenders in addressing the worse forms of exploitation in their supply chains, with an average score of 31 out of 100. French luxury goods company Kering (owner of the Alexander McQueen and Gucci labels) scored 41 out of 100, while LVMH (owner of the Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton labels) scored 19 out of 100" https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/7/14/are-your-favouri...

> mostly made in sweatshops outside of Europe

Would you like to provide a link to support this claim in your OP rather than links about Europe or supply chain transparency.

There is a whole investigation showing how their workshops are hell for workers.

https://www.challenges.fr/economie/ce-cash-investigation-qui...

rough translation:

> Workers' testimonies of this company, for the most part immigrants, are overwhelming: fingers cut by the machines, work without a break of 13 hours a day, entire months of unpaid salaries, multiplication of work accidents... and a local work inspection who doesn't give a shit.

boycott them

Sure, but the comment you're replying to was not saying it's a wonderful place to work, they were saying that the initial statement of "made in sweatshops outside of Europe" isn't true, which it isn't. No matter if the workplace is terrible or not, it's not outside of Europe.

Great consolation.

it's not LVMH in this case but Kering (another French luxury giant)

Not sure if it is still current, but Louis Vuitton has a past: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/17/revealed-th...

Louis Vuitton (the handbag company that composes the L and V in LVMH) runs a 100,000 sq ft factory in Texas: https://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/louis-vuitton-ope...

I wonder if they stretch those definitions like many brands do by manufacturing in Guam, Puerto Rico, etc as "made in USA"? (Which are, of course, American territories, but play by very different labor laws, tax regimes, etc.)

What is "fitting"?

The clothes obviously...

Probably that most of Europe’s wealth came from its colonial ambitions of exploitation and extraction and so it’s fitting their largest company continues this European tradition.

Or possibly a comment on how Europe is unable to innovate so it makes sense their largest company relies on old, traditional perceptions of “European luxury” in craftsmanship when in reality it’s just outsourcing to the same factories as everyone else. But vapid people still fall for it.

Mostly meant it the latter way, but now that you mention it, the first understanding works too :-)

iPhone?

Most of the stuff you buy is too

Reply on news.ycombinator.com