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What do you expect from luxury goods? Perfection. LVMH has experience producing in the US. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-11
When the minimum cost of one of your handbags is $1,500, any missed or crooked stitch, a tiny nick, or, heaven forbid, a deliberately hidden minuscule tear goes straight back to the seller for a refund. This refund rate is built into the cost price. Simple. These defects are part of what you find in fakes/knockoffs.
LVMH's portfolio includes Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennessy, Christian Dior Couture, Givenchy, Fendi, Celine, Kenzo, Tiffany, Bulgari, Loewe, TAG Heuer, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Sephora, and Loro Piana.
Some reasonably well-known brands. No?
Well, under the Orange ones' first attempt at screwing up America
LVMH finds making Louis Vuitton bags messy in Texas -Reuters
ALVARADO, Texas / PARIS, April 10 (Reuters) - Six years ago, LVMH's billionaire CEO Bernard Arnault and President Donald Trump cut the blue ribbon on a factory in rural Texas that would make designer handbags for Louis Vuitton, one of the world’s best-known luxury brands.
That should have been LVMH’s first warning.
“The ramp-up was harder than we thought it would be, that’s true,” Ludovic Pauchard, Louis Vuitton’s industrial director, said in an interview on Friday in response to detailed questions about Reuters findings.
Uh-Oh.
The Texas site, situated on a 250-acre ranch, has struggled due to a lack of skilled leather workers able to produce at the brand’s quality standards, the three former workers told Reuters. “It took them years to start making the simple pockets of the Neverfull handbag,” one source familiar with operations at the plant said, referring to the classic Louis Vuitton shoulder tote bag.
That skill, often overlooked/undervalued, takes decades and a long history of manufacturing and processing leather.
For example.
I love gloves and have a history of planning holidays around their acquisition. Yep. Morocco: for everyday gloves. Spain, don’t get me started, I’ll drool.
At least for shoes, we both agree, Italy.
Errors made during the cutting, preparation and assembly process led to the waste of as many as 40% of the leather hides, said one former employee with detailed knowledge of the factory’s performance. Industry-wide, typical waste rates for leather goods are generally 20%, a senior industry source said. Several former employees who spoke to Reuters described a high pressure environment. To boost production numbers, supervisors routinely turned a blind eye toward methods to conceal defects, and in some cases encouraged them, four former employees told Reuters.
*And that is a serious no, no.
A former leather worker who arrived as a migrant in the U.S. some years before, said she felt proud when she was hired by the prestigious French brand, but said some workers struggled to meet the brand’s quality standards and production targets.
Why did they do this?
LVMH got a host of tax breaks and incentives from Johnson County, including a 10-year, 75% property tax cut, promising the company an estimated $29 million in savings. ”We look forward to serving this exceptional company,” wrote the county’s top executive, Roger Harmon, in 2017 correspondence seen by Reuters. In its 2017 application letter for the tax abatement, obtained by Reuters through records request, LVMH said it was aiming to hire 500 people within the first five years of the plan. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2019, Arnault said, “We will create approximately 1,000 high-skilled jobs here at Rochambeau over the next five years.” Three former staffers, however, said headcount stood at just under 300 workers in February 2025, a figure Verbrigghe confirmed.
Ah.
So, the point of this diary?
Trump’s Tariffs
To bring European manufacturers to the US.
[Imagine if your new S-class Mercedes arrived with a ding in the hood or an engine leak.]
But at what cost to you?
If it is anything like LVMH, that is one expensive operation.
It is basically a scam.
A morning muse
~A
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