Why Are Luxury Brands So Secretive About Overseas Outsourcing?

No one can resist wearing a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes except for brand The charm, the people who like it believe in the exquisite craft of shoes. LV has also claimed that its shoe factories are located in Venice, a famous shoe making city.

Recently, however, British journalists have given another way of saying the true appearance of LV processing plants. Reporters visited the Transylvania in Romania. LV Factory found LV Shoe shoe Almost all production is done in this factory, and each pair is priced between 500 euro and 1800 euros.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, the factory is actually a subsidiary of LV, called "Somarest". However, this company is rarely known. Managers have revealed that the factory has been in a state of secrecy, and they have taken a lot of trouble to stop the name "Somarest" appearing in Google's search engine. There is also no LV related logo on the exterior of the factory building, only a "Somarest" word on the gate.

The reporter's interview at the factory was not smooth. After several rounds of processing, the factory spokesman finally revealed the details of the production: "our senior managers are all French, and the raw materials of their products are imported from France. After the assembly of the factory in Romania, the products will be exported to France and Italy, and the final processing will be finished in the local factories. Therefore, the products of "made in France" and "made in Italy" are in conformity with EU law. But the so-called "processing completion" step in his mouth is simply to add sole.

Although the factory's exposure is unexpected, such a business model is also reasonable.

A French documentary team tried to investigate the factory as early as 2014, when an anonymous staff member disclosed the factory's situation truthfully, but LV's parent company LVMH group CEO Bernard Arnott refused to admit it. But since then, rumors about LV overseas factories have not stopped. Romania media Digi24 also reported in 2015 that LV is one of the top 500 exporters in Romania in 2014.

In fact, overseas factories are already an open secret in the luxury industry. Clothing manufacturing follows the Pyramid model: the advanced custom series and other best products are limited by the traditional artisans with superb skills in France and Italy, while the medium quality clothing series is subcontracted to large factories in the low labor countries. Needless to say, Romania is China's largest treasure brand.

The shift of brand factories to China began in the middle of 1990s, and the US leather brand Coach decided to move a small part of its production from China to China. This decision led Coach to achieve two digit quarterly growth. Encouraged by Coach, more and more luxury brands are also eager to try. However, the brand executives are hesitant before spanferring the place of origin. Even if they really moved to China, executives were afraid of quality discounts, and image damage would also claim that their products were made by craftsmen in Italy and France.

Although few brands admit such a thing, in 2005, Prada brand CEO Patrizio Bertelli boldly told reporters: "the company is currently evaluating some other low price labor markets that will turn production to include China." Furla, a Italy leather goods company, also said that in 2002, they began to produce some wallets and handbags in China. In addition, LVMH group's brand C line line's Denim stitching leather handbag Macadam has also started production in China.

"The original luxury brands no longer exist." Dana Thomas, a fashion journalist, commented on the outsourced brand in her book "luxury", "they can not openly remove production from Europe without hurting the brand image created over the years."

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.