Many people sign and swoon over their favorite brands and favorite designers, and I do as well. However, there are reasons that certain brands used to be so very expensive, and certain reasons that some brands still are. I will give a brief explanation here. Materials used. A true Louis Vuitton will always be made in France. For a very brief time about 25-30 years ago, a small selection of Vuitton products was made elsewhere, but Louis Vuitton (Now LVMH, which is Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, should you wonder) decided to return to their original past and continue creating in their homeland. There is no Louis Vuitton outlet. There is no sale where prices are 50 percent off. Real Louis Vuitton is never made in China. It is always real leather. Want to know how to tell real leather from the fake? Touch your finger to your tongue. Touch your finger to the leather. It should make a temporary wet mark that darkens in color. Touch your finger to vinyl. The moisture from your tongue, it will sit on top of the vinyl. The color will not change. There are many websites that can illustrate better for you how to tell the real from the fake Louis Vuitton bags. I see them all the time being carried on the arms of women who foolishly believe that everyone thinks that the bag they carry is real. Workmanship costs money for the company. Cheap labor is cheap. When you are buying a LV bag, you are buying workmanship. Other designers used to make their things with great regards to quality. Now, they have contracted their work to countries where labor is cheap. Look at a Coach pill case. One from many years ago will feature a perfect rounded rectangle top. The zipper is sewn in well. The pill bottles feature snug Lids. Look at a Coach pill box today. The rectangle is rounded, but not exact. The pill bottles inside are cheap and will shatter. The zipper may be sewn in correctly, it may not. It is made in Turkey. Country of origin is important to me as a buyer. Not because I have bias against the country or any of the people there. Instead it is because I know that some countries do not have labor laws to protect their people. If not that, the cheap wages do not serve to let the worker have a good living. Also, the materials may be of a suspect place of origin. Outsourcing to third world countries ends the original designer from having as much say in the finished product, but allows the designer to continue to turn out product, selling on the label alone, and no longer selling on quality. I urge you to do as I do, research where your product is made and write the design houses and let them know that you will no longer purchase or use their line if it is not made in a country of reputable treatment of workers. I no longer purchase Lilly Pulitzer, Coach, Prada, Burberry and many others for their outsourcing of products.
