Where did the Vuitton bags go?

[Catoneinutica]

Seriously, what happened to the Vuitton bags that were ubiquitous as recently as a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, it's still easy to spot one, but not like the late nineties, when it seemed like more than half the women on the Yamanote Line had one.

Coach, Vuitton's poor American sister, is beginning to disappear as well, based on my (purely non-systematic) observaciones of J-chix.

It used to be boilerplate in Western media stories on Japan that, sure, the Japanese lived in rabbit hutches, but, hey, the ladies all had had Vuitton bags. Now they live in rabbit hutches and...well, you do see the occasional Peter Rabbit bag.

[Charles]

Seriously, what happened to the Vuitton bags that were ubiquitous as recently as a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, it's still easy to spot one, but not like the late nineties, when it seemed like more than half the women on the Yamanote Line had one.

They changed the designs a lot recently. Would you recognize this as a Vuitton bag, if you didn't look close enough to read it?

[Greji]

Seriously, what happened to the Vuitton bags that were ubiquitous as recently as a few years ago. Don't get me wrong, it's still easy to spot one, but not like the late nineties, when it seemed like more than half the women on the Yamanote Line had one.

Coach, Vuitton's poor American sister, is beginning to disappear as well, based on my (purely non-systematic) observaciones of J-chix.

It used to be boilerplate in Western media stories on Japan that, sure, the Japanese lived in rabbit hutches, but, hey, the ladies all had had Vuitton bags. Now they live in rabbit hutches and...well, you do see the occasional Peter Rabbit bag.

Coach is still here bigtime, but as Chas says, some of the new designs are hard to spot unless you're really in to that shit. This morning, my current hobby had a coach jacket, Coach bag with "baby", Coach shoes and a Coach watch. Her wardrobe and accessories were probably worth more than my bloody ride that I was ferrying her to work in. All the gals in my office are Coach'd up with something and snobs about it at that!

Maybe your Chiba farm gals have just quit styling?

[kusai Jijii]

Where's Lois?
Who the fuck cares? Count your blessings and knock on wood...

[Jack]

Where's Lois?
Who the fuck cares? Count your blessings and knock on wood...

If you have nothing intelligent to say just go back to reading your juvenile comics.

[2triky]

They changed the designs a lot recently. Would you recognize this as a Vuitton bag, if you didn't look close enough to read it?

Your point is well taken...but that bag is quite old....more recent designs have been commissioned by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

[kusai Jijii]

If you have nothing intelligent to say just go back to reading your juvenile comics.

Sorry Jack, tell us more about that really interesting story where you met the dude who told you about how all the good Salmon ended up in Japan and how... oh fuck it! Never mind. Go and have yet another tug to a Kumi Koda vid.

[Catoneinutica]

Coach is still here bigtime, but as Chas says, some of the new designs are hard to spot unless you're really in to that shit. This morning, my current hobby had a coach jacket, Coach bag with "baby", Coach shoes and a Coach watch. Her wardrobe and accessories were probably worth more than my bloody ride that I was ferrying her to work in. All the gals in my office are Coach'd up with something and snobs about it at that!

Maybe your Chiba farm gals have just quit styling?

Hope those gals realize that Coach stuff is made mostly in...Chugoku. Coach is a big step down conspicuous-consumption-wise from Vuitton, but even Coach is becoming increasingly more uncommon on the Yamanote Line, not to mention out here in the hinterlands of Inage, where land can be bought for the low, low price of 1,000,000 yen/tsubu (so cheap I think I'm going to buy a thousand-or-so tsubo and set up a dog-breeding business; maybe a junkyard as well).

Do you spring for Vuitton when you buy omiyage for that (small but finely-formed) Arab gent?

[Jack]

Sorry Jack, tell us more about that really interesting story where you met the dude who told you about how all the good Salmon ended up in Japan and how... oh fuck it! Never mind. Go and have yet another tug to a Kumi Koda vid.

Blah blah blah. Fuck off.

[Adhesive]

I was under the impression that Coach was on the rise in Japan...or at least it had shifted its concumer base from crotchity old ladies to young trend-setters. We brought some Coach bags as gifts when we visited Japan this spring and they were a big hit. I also see them advertised a lot more in the fashion rags that my wife reads.

[succubusqueen]

Louis Vuitton bags are ugly as hell....

[Jack]

Louis Vuitton bags are ugly as hell....

Wow, there's an insightful comment for you. Spoken like a true person with no money.

[ttjereth]

[quote="Catoneinutica"]not to mention out here in the hinterlands of Inage, where land can be bought for the low, low price of 1,000,000 yen/tsubu (so cheap I think I'm going to buy a thousand-or-so tsubo and set up a dog-breeding business]

1,000,000 yen/tsubo is cheap?! Our place is 300,000 per tsubo for 80 tsubos and I still think that is expensive... (I wanted to build in Tochigi where you can still get land 5 minutes from the station at 80,000/tsubo...)

[kusai Jijii]

Wow, there's an insightful comment for you. Spoken like a true person with no money.

And thats a a comment spoken like a true person with no taste. You cant buy class (hence your obsession with Kumi Koda).

[Mulboyne]

1,000,000 yen/tsubo is cheap?!

Another irony/internet disconnect, I think.

[Charles]

Hope those gals realize that Coach stuff is made mostly in...Chugoku.

I hear that all the big European luxury brands are mostly made in sweatshops in the Marianas, India, and Bangladesh. The pieces are 90% assembled and then the final finishing is done in Italy, France, whereever the brand claims to come from. They only do the minimum required by law to be a EU product, which IIRC is about 10%.

[succubusqueen]

Wow, there's an insightful comment for you. Spoken like a true person with no money.

yeah, and you as a person with very little personality and a shitload of anger..

Get some help ...

[Catoneinutica]

Louis Vuitton bags are ugly as hell....

They are ugly, and vulgar, too, and I hope no one gets the impression I'm lamenting their disappearance. It's just that they were so common up to a few years ago that every Clueless Newbie Reporter (tm) remarked on their ubiquitousness. Their big selling point, as many J-women would tell you, was that they were durable. So, where are they now? Moldering in closets?

-catone
-I used one of my wife's Bubble-Era Vuitton bags as a carry-on flight bag in an emergency. I remember walking through the LAX terminal and getting a dirty look from some middle-aged Beverly Center power-biatch type. I thought, "What....?" Then I realized that my Vuitton bag was bigger than hers. Heh.

[Tommybar]

I hear that all the big European luxury brands are mostly made in sweatshops in the Marianas, India, and Bangladesh. The pieces are 90% assembled and then the final finishing is done in Italy, France, whereever the brand claims to come from. They only do the minimum required by law to be a EU product, which IIRC is about 10%.

Japan is the same way. I was legally able to purchase Japanese produced fibers, make wigs in China with it, then sell them in Japan as 'Made in Japan'.

[Dragonette]

Louis Vuitton bags are ugly as hell....

Ugly is too generic - hideous, horrendous, is more like it, but I can't believe it's about taste at all. It's gotta be about wealth and sexual power display, mainly for other women, as in "What do you THINK I did well enough to earn this, giggle giggle, blush, blush...

[Captain Japan]

[Charles]

I used one of my wife's Bubble-Era Vuitton bags as a carry-on flight bag in an emergency. I remember walking through the LAX terminal and getting a dirty look from some middle-aged Beverly Center power-biatch type. I thought, "What....?" Then I realized that my Vuitton bag was bigger than hers. Heh.

How gauche. Nobody travels with just one Vuitton bag.

"Women are choosing to wear jeans," Morita explains. "Brand goods don't go well with denim."

Oh how wrong he is..

[ttjereth]

Another irony/internet disconnect, I think.

Yes, seems so. In my defense please note the time of my response

[Catoneinutica]

I hear that all the big European luxury brands are mostly made in sweatshops in the Marianas, India, and Bangladesh. The pieces are 90% assembled and then the final finishing is done in Italy, France, whereever the brand claims to come from. They only do the minimum required by law to be a EU product, which IIRC is about 10%.

That's interesting. I wonder why Coach doesn't do the same thing - the US must have similar rules regarding country of origin.

-catone
-thanks, too, to the Captain for the great link, which I'd somehow missed

[Charles]

That's interesting. I wonder why Coach doesn't do the same thing - the US must have similar rules regarding country of origin.

-catone
-thanks, too, to the Captain for the great link, which I'd somehow missed

I'm sure they do. The US has rather lax rules on country of origin. How do you think the Marianas came to have such big sweatshops? There is a rather big US Senate scandal brewing about all that.

[Jack]

That's interesting. I wonder why Coach doesn't do the same thing - the US must have similar rules regarding country of origin.

-catone
-thanks, too, to the Captain for the great link, which I'd somehow missed

Having their products made in sweatshops is an exaggeration of people who have no money thus trying to justify why they cannot buy luxury products. This way they can say that "I don't want to buy because of sweatshop yadayadayada".

Coach makes the majority of its products in China.

The super luxury brands like Chanel, Vuitton, Hermes, Bulgari and Gucci do not have any of their products made in third world countries. But others so-called luxury like Prada, Coach, Fendi etc. do.

[Adhesive]

I'm sure they do. The US has rather lax rules on country of origin. How do you think the Marianas came to have such big sweatshops? There is a rather big US Senate scandal brewing about all that.

I think the U.S. is fairly strict as far as the "Made in the U.S.A" moniker is concerned.

From the FTC website:

The Standard For Unqualified Made In USA Claims

What is the standard for a product to be called Made in USA without qualification?

For a product to be called Made in USA, or claimed to be of domestic origin without qualifications or limits on the claim, the product must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S. The term "United States," as referred to in the Enforcement Policy Statement, includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories and possessions.
What does "all or virtually all" mean?

"All or virtually all" means that all significant parts and processing that go into the product must be of U.S. origin. That is, the product should contain no ―]What substantiation is required for a Made in USA claim?[/B]

When a manufacturer or marketer makes an unqualified claim that a product is Made in USA, it should have ― and rely on ― a "reasonable basis" to support the claim at the time it is made. This means a manufacturer or marketer needs competent and reliable evidence to back up the claim that its product is "all or virtually all" made in the U.S.
What factors does the Commission consider to determine whether a product is "all or virtually all" made in the U.S.?

The product’s final assembly or processing must take place in the U.S. The Commission then considers other factors, including how much of the product’s total manufacturing costs can be assigned to U.S. parts and processing, and how far removed any foreign content is from the finished product. In some instances, only a small portion of the total manufacturing costs are attributable to foreign processing, but that processing represents a significant amount of the product’s overall processing. The same could be true for some foreign parts. In these cases, the foreign content (processing or parts) is more than negligible, and, as a result, unqualified claims are inappropriate.
Example: A company produces propane barbecue grills at a plant in Nevada. The product’s major components include the gas valve, burner and aluminum housing, each of which is made in the U.S. The grill’s knobs and tubing are imported from Mexico. An unqualified Made in USA claim is not likely to be deceptive because the knobs and tubing make up a negligible portion of the product’s total manufacturing costs and are insignificant parts of the final product.
Example: A table lamp is assembled in the U.S. from American-made brass, an American-made Tiffany-style lampshade, and an imported base. The base accounts for a small percent of the total cost of making the lamp. An unqualified Made in USA claim is deceptive for two reasons: The base is not far enough removed in the manufacturing process from the finished product to be of little consequence and it is a significant part of the final product.

[Charles]

I think the U.S. is fairly strict as far as the "Made in the U.S.A" moniker is concerned.

Right, but you quoted regs:

The term "United States," as referred to in the Enforcement Policy Statement, includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories and possessions.

The labor laws on US possessions like the Marianas are quite liberal. And they have some incredibly horrible "guest worker" laws that evade US minimum wages, and leaves the workers basically stranded as slave laborers with no way off the islands. So you don't have to send the work to India or the China, you can bring the workers to the sweatshop. And they can still claim it's "Made in the U.S.A." even if it's from Marianas sweatshops.

[Captain Japan]

Oh how wrong he is..

How can you say that about a guy who has hair like that?

[Mulboyne]

Reuters: Japanese luxury stores feel pinch

Designer boutiques in Tokyo are still packed with well-dressed young people, but these days few of them carry shopping bags. As Japan's economy heads toward recession and its stock market hovers around a five-year low, shoppers are closing their wallets, and the impact on European fashion houses has been dramatic. From Louis Vuitton to Versace, brands are testing new strategies for the world's second-largest luxury goods market after the United States, such as wooing the super-wealthy or using Tokyo as a shopping mall for the rest of Asia. But so far, no company appears to have found the magic formula to cure Japan's luxury malaise. "Some of my friends really like to buy designer brands, but in general, brands are less important now," said Hiromi Takahashi, a 38-year-old office worker wearing a black top embellished with studs and sequins. "We all talk about food prices, oil, the cost of living." Takahashi was browsing through Jean-Paul Gaultier jackets and Alexander McQueen tops at Via Bus Stop, a boutique in Tokyo's sleek Midtown shopping mall. She did not plan to buy any, preferring cheaper labels. Around her, young couples and groups of women were toting small gift bags with accessories by mid-range brands -- affordable treats in the midst of a shrinking economy.

Japan's gross domestic product contracted 0.7 per cent in the April to June quarter, more than expected. At the same time, prices are rising while wages are not. Core inflation was stuck at a decade-high 2.4 per cent in August due to high fuel and raw material costs, but cash earnings actually slipped 0.3 year-on-year that month and household spending was down 4 per cent. No wonder consumer confidence hit a record low in September. "It's not just luxury goods but also other clothes and eating out and cars and oil products, mainly because of the price rises," said Azusa Kato, chief economist at BNP Paribas. She attributed the luxury goods slide especially to the decline in Tokyo's stock market, which hurt the middle class.

The Nikkei share average has lost about 45 per cent so far this year. The downturn has also erased another much-cited Japanese phenomenon, the so-called 'parasite singles,' young professionals living with their parents who would spend all their money on Louis Vuitton wallets and Chanel bags. After the decade-long 1990s recession and the bursting of the technology bubble in 2002, Japanese companies fired employees and hired temporary workers, drying out the young spenders. "Now, many young people are on short-term contracts. Their income is low, so they have to live with their parents and their spending is very low," Kato said. Luxury firms used to love Japan for its broad consumer base with a traditional fondness for quality, craftsmanship and the ability to blend in by wearing certain brands. At France's Hermes, executive vice-president Patrick Albaladejo said in September that his business had suffered with Japan's soft economy because many of his customers were middle-class consumers. His solution: focus on Japan's next-door neighbour, China, and on the super-rich....more...