"Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster", with author Dana Thomas

Date:
Thursday February 21st

Time: 8am - 9.30am

Location:
'21' Club
21 West 52nd Street,
(Between 5th and 6th Avenues)

Please RSVP by replying to this email or by writing to rsvp@luxurycouncil.com by no later than Wednesday February 13th.

In the event that your plans change we'd be most appreciative of the courtesy of a cancellation.

Dana Thomas, Portfolio's new European Editor, who served for 12 years as Newsweek style and cultural reporter in Paris, and has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, and The Financial Times in London, will explore the dark side of the new luxury industry in a presentation based on her New York Times bestseller, DELUXE: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (The Penguin Press).

Dana brings a hard-hitting, behind-the-scenes look at the world of "New Luxury" and how the massification of luxury goods has ensured that luxury isn't luxurious any longer.
 
There was a time when luxury was available to only the rarefied and aristocratic world of old money and royalty.  Luxury wasn't simply a product, it was a lifestyle, one that denoted a history of tradition, superior quality, and a pampered buying experience.  Today's luxury marketplace would be virtually unrecognizable to the old-world elite.  Gone are the family owned businesses dedicated to integrity and quality; the industry is now run by massive corporations focused only on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and, above all, profits.  Handmade goods are practically extinct, and almost all manufacturing has been outsourced to large factories in places such as China, where your expensive brand-name handbag is being assembled right next to one from a mass-market label the will cost substantially less.
 
Dana Thomas digs down into the dark side of the luxury industry to uncover all the secrets that Luxury brands don't want us to know- from perfume manufacture to crowded factories in China, where workers glue together "Made in Italy" bags by the thousands.  Thomas explores the whole of today's high-end shopping experience to answer some pressing questions:
 
What is the new definition of luxury when advertising for this upscale lifestyle is targeted mainly to middle-class masses?
 
What are we paying for when quality has given way to quantity, and luxury is no longer just for the upper-class elite?
 
Thomas has traveled all over the world to interview corporate heads and factory workers, the old-money, old-luxury clients and the new luxury-obsessed middle-class consumer, and she paints a surprising picture of today's New Luxury.  With Deluxe, she delivers a fast-paced, uncompromising look at the real world behind the glossy magazines and red carpet couture and asks: How did luxury lose its luster?

Dana Thomas is Portfolio magazine's new European Editor in Paris. She served as the cultural and fashion writer for Newsweek in Paris for twelve years, and has contributed to various publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, The Los Angeles Times, and The Financial Times in London.  She is the Paris correspondent for Australian Harper's Bazaar and a member of the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris and the Overseas Press Club. 

Thomas taught journalism at The American University of Paris from 1996 to 1999.  In 1987, she received the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation Scholarship and the Ellis Haller Award for Outstanding Achievement in Journalism.

She lives in Paris with her husband, Herve d'Halluin, and their seven-year-old daughter, Lucie Lee.

Praise for DELUXE:

“The story of luxury goods today is really about globalization, capitalization, class and culture.  Dana Thomas has a feel for all of this and more and has written a fascinating book.  A luxury product about luxury.”

“Dana Thomas is a brilliant reporter with a sharp eye for detail. In Deluxe, she provides an illuminating account of how the multi billion dollar luxury industry and the corporate giants that dominate it prey on, and bamboozle, consumers in the United States and the rest of the world.”

“Deluxe is delicious if you know about fashion; fascinating even if you don’t.  Dana Thomas is a fearless reporter who shows how so many designer goods have gone to hell in a handbag. This is a page-turning yarn about the men and women who have transformed luxury into an off-the-rack, global commodity.”

“Through exhaustive reporting and personalized storytelling, Dana Thomas has delivered a historical survey of a business that truly keeps the world going round. She may never again be so readily welcomed in some quarters of this beau monde, but the trade off is an essential reference for any student of fashion, finance or culture.”