Reply With QuoteThen don't buy it
The LV look / style / logo clearly have a value as is demonstrated by the market.
Not by my definition.Originally Posted by lofter1
Value = Absolute usability for other than purley cosmetic or stature. Having a bag that is ugly and impractical (not a good size for anything, weird pockets that are too large or small for what they are needed, etc).
Worth = $$ amount for whatever reason.
To me buying an LV is like buying a TV with only 2 colors just because it says "Sony". (Which, surprisingly, is not far off the mark...*cough*BOSE*cough*)
Then don't buy it
The LV look / style / logo clearly have a value as is demonstrated by the market.
^ The LV logo pattern and colors have been unchanged since the late 1800's.
The genuine articles are exquisitely made, they last forever and many retain and increase their value... there is a good market for used and vintage LV articles.
The company employs genuine craftsman and uses old style production methods. If you know fine things you can spot a fake LV from a mile away.
We should be complianing about all of the throw-away junk that floods the market... not about Louis Vuitton.
Vintage LV bags for sale:
http://www.taravintage.com/borselv.htm
"Since the 19th century, manufacture of Louis Vuitton goods have not changed: Luggage is still made by hand. Contemporary Fashion (edited by Richard Martin) gives a preview of the creation of the LV trunks: "the craftsmen line up the leather and canvas, tapping in the tiny nails one by one and securing the five-letter solid pick-proof brass locks with an individual handmade key, designed to allow the traveler to have only one key for all of his or her luggage. The woven frames of each trunk are made of 30-year-old poplar that has been allowed to dry for at least four years. Each trunk has a serial number and can take up to 60 hours to make, and a suitcase as many as 15 hours."
"Many of the company's products utilize the signature brown Damier and Monogram Canvas materials, both of which were first used in the late 19th century. All of the company's products exhibit the eponymous LV initials."
About the value of the brand:
"The Louis Vuitton Brand and the famous LV monogram are among the world's most valuable brands. According to a Millward Brown 2009 study, Louis Vuitton is the world's 29th most valuable brand, right after AT&T and before HSBC. The brand itself is estimated to be worth USD 19.395 billion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Vuitton
LV is only being discussed here because it's one of many luxury brands that folks want to possess for cheap. LV knock-offs of all sorts are available to be bought out of suitcases and big black bags all around Canal Street. NYPD spends huge amounts of money to try and keep the counterfeiters under control.
Yesterday NYPD's "Eye in the Sky" took up position right in the heart of knock-off row on Canal Street ...
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A bag like this could last forever and I would still think it was ugly and impractical.
A cinder-block is also quite durable (if you do not drop it, that is) but it does not mean I will strap a handle to it and carry it around town!
Fab, the bag you showed is a legacy piece. Something that established the name. Now they use the name as the selling point in and of itself.
Here's the irony, "Making a name" has always been considered a valid business practice. You make a good product, you get a name, people trust that name and believe that it is an affidavit of the quality of the product w/o any further proof.
But what is also true is that many manufacturers depend more on name than actual substance. Ford, Sony and BOSE are three examples. Fords classic 1950's vehicles and trucks, Sony's old V's and VCR's (and don't forget the original Walkman) and BOSE's Waverunner clock radio set them as companies to watch, but instead of keeping their design standards to the level that achieved their status, they hyped the price and lowered the quality to what the market would bear.
Ford has paid the price, but it took 30 or so years for it to happen.
Now with things like apparel and fashion it gets tricky, as clothing rarely addresses the practicality of any function these days. Women have pants with pockets that can't fit anything, handbags that range from pup-tents to miniature cell phone cases, and shoes that even De Sade would look at and opt for something more humane.
When luggage needed to be slung on a coach, or piled on a train, durability and security were musts, and that is what established brands like LV. Expensive, durable and stylish.
But now? That bag itself has no other purpose than to be "LV". It is not practical or attractive in any significant way, and the ultimate irony of handbags is, the more durable it is, the longer it will remain obsolete when the trend shifts.
Proof that people want a product for the name and status is the fact that you CAN sell a cheap product with the name on it, AND PEOPLE WILL STILL BUY IT EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW IT IS A FAKE!
It is one thing to be sold something that claims it is something it is not, but when something never says it is, we are talking something different.
These people are buying the paint on the house without checking the foundation. They don't care if it falls apart in a few years, they didn't buy it to LIVE in it, just to drive their friends and family by to show them what they got.....
Besides, do these fakes REALLY cut into the sales of their bags? Really? You think anyone buying a $50 fake has the cash for a $500 original? The people that would buy the $500 original usually would not want to be "caught" with a fake either. So what's the hubub, bub?
The only thing I can't stand is the vendors themselves and the fact that there IS such a vain desire for the name that they can make a living off of it.
Knock-offs: in a way it's free advertising for a company like LV, Gucci, Prada and so on. There are those who say that it actually adds to the brand's prestige: if you have a brand that no one knocks-off, it's because it's not as desirable.
A friend of mine owns a few Fendi shops here in Italy: he claims Fendi produces their own knock-offs... cashing in on the phenomena.
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Ninja wrote: "now they use the name as the selling point in and of itself."
"But now? That bag itself has no other purpose than to be "LV". It is not practical or attractive in any significant way, and the ultimate irony of handbags is, the more durable it is, the longer it will remain obsolete when the trend shifts."
The LV logo and brown color bags have been prestige symbols since forever. The classic soft bags that LV sells today have not been changed in decades. I remember wealthy women friends of mine coveting them 30 years ago... and they were outrageously expensive back then too.
The multi-coloured special edition bags done by Mark Jacobs and so on are becoming collectors items. That combined with impeccable workmanship is something good.
The bags BTW are perfectly practical. I've never heard a woman claiming them to be impractical.
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Last edited by Fabrizio; October 1st, 2009 at 11:21 AM. Reason: I just wanted to see what abusing the ability to modify posts feels like.
Why would any woman that spent that much money on a handbag ever admit they were wrong in buying it?
A Rise in Violent Crime Evokes City’s Unruly Past
By RAY RIVERA and AL BAKER
Teenagers flashing knives in a spate of high school stabbings. Two men murdered in a brawl aboard a downtown No. 2 subway train. Four people shot and 33 others arrested in late-night melees in Times Square that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg described with a loaded term from the past: “wilding.”
It is impossible to know if the recent increase in violent crime in the city is legitimate cause for concern that the “bad old days” of crime may return, or if it simply represents a blip in a trend line continuing a descent of nearly two decades.
Homicides are up nearly 22 percent in 2010, compared with the same period last year.
Shootings are up in the city, to 293 from 257, a 14 percent increase. And there are more victims of gunfire: 351 through April 4, up from 318 in the same period a year ago.
But it is not statistics, but rather the tenor and pace of 2010’s spasm of disorder that are suggestive of a bygone era, and have again raised questions about whether New York City is finally at the end of crime declines.
Add to this a depleted police headcount — and city and state budgets that remain stubbornly unsolved — and crime is suddenly a political hammer: The mayor is lobbying for money from Albany, and state lawmakers are pleading poverty even as they try to close a $9.2 billion budget gap and serve the needs of constituencies from Buffalo to Bridgehampton.
Last week, after hordes of young people swarmed Times Square in what has evolved in recent years into a violent Easter night ritual, the mayor used a term popularized in 1989 when a Central Park jogger was brutally attacked, emblematic of an era when crime in the city was at its apex. That followed comments he made in March when he called the uptick in homicides “worrisome,” and decried, “We have fewer police officers on the streets than we did before.”
His choice of words was significant for a mayor who typically gives little credence to minor fluctuations in data. But the posturing is laced with a degree of caution, as city officials strive to sound the alarms of budget cuts while at the same time assuring the public that the streets remain as safe as they have ever been.
Addressing a radio audience on Sunday, Mr. Bloomberg said that since 2001, overall crime was down 40 percent, murder was down 35 percent and subway crime was down nearly by half.
Under the governor’s and the Senate’s budget proposals, the city would lose roughly $1.3 billion, and a little more than half of that under the Assembly’s plan. The mayor warned in January that the governor’s proposal would force the Police Department to lay off 3,150 officers, bringing the force down to same level it was in 1985. He backed off that statement last week, saying on his weekly radio program that the city was “not going to lay off cops.”
Nonetheless, the police force has been shrinking steadily, from a high of 40,285 officers in 2000, to about 35,600 last year.
Even if the cuts in the governor’s proposal were fully restored, the department’s uniformed count is still on course to drop below 33,000 through attrition by July 2011, its lowest level since 1990, when it had 32,441 officers, including housing and transit police before the departments were merged.
That was the year murders in the city peaked at 2,245, making it one of the nation’s top murder capitals. Not only is the force smaller, but it is also being pulled in more directions, with roughly 1,000 officers on counterterrorism duty. The department devotes cars and resources to a critical response team and to provide a presence near potential terrorist targets, though those resources can be redeployed to areas with elevated crime.
Some officials worry the city is already slipping toward its lawless past.
“What is the tipping point?” said Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president. “How low can you go, in actual police numbers? And I think what these statistics say, and these other incidents say, especially those who have been around the city all our lives, is we may have tipped a little.”
Mr. Stringer added that for the first time in a long time he is hearing from constituents who do not feel safe in the subways or the streets. A string of six stabbings involving high school students over a few days last month, along with a subway brawl that left two people dead and the Easter night mayhem in Times Square have helped stoke those fears.
But perceptions about crime and safety are often more potent than reality. Criminologists long have warned against using statistics selectively, to study trends in crime over short time periods — say, less than six months’ worth of data — because such analyses can lead to faulty portrayals.
For instance, the murder rate is up this year, because of increased numbers of killings in the first three months of the year, but the rate is in no way near its peak.
Through April 4, there were 118 homicides recorded, up from 97 in the same period a year earlier, for a 21.6 percent increase. But through March, the tally for the year was still lower than it was in the first three months of 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008 — all low crime years.
“Crime is down, last year, down to record lows,” said Raymond W. Kelly, the city’s police commissioner. “We’ve seen an increase in murders. Obviously that’s a cause for concern. But if we stayed at this level of murders — we know it does go up seasonally — but if we stayed at this level of murders, 1.25 a day, we’d have a record low year. So it puts it in some sort of context as to where we are. The city has become much, much safer.”
“So, we’ve had some high-profile events,” Mr. Kelly added. “That’s going to happen in a big city like this, but it’s important to keep it in context.”
Still, violent crime this year is rising across several categories, even though the overall crime rate in the city’s 76 police precincts is showing a decrease of 2.3 percent. Rapes have increased to 324 as of April 4, from 277 in the same period a year ago; robberies are flat, at 4,477 each year; felony assaults have risen to 3,836 from 3,707.
Statewide, crime is also ticking up slightly in the major jurisdictions outside New York City so far this year, rising 1.4 percent through February in the state’s so-called impact zones, which account for 80 percent of the crime outside of the city. But the spike, driven by an increase in January, “appears to be more an anomaly than a trend,” said John M. Caher, a spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, particularly since crime is down in February.
Still, statistically important or not, it means more municipalities competing with New York City for state money.
“I think there is going to be a lot of hurt around the state and in the city,” said State Senator Martin J. Golden, a Republican from Brooklyn and a retired city police officer, who said he understood the need for more officers. “I don’t see an alternative. Spending has to stop.”
For the municipalities requesting money, he said, that will mean “some tough choices.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/ny.../12police.html
Crime rate for the first half of this year is significantly up over the same period in 2009, but not to the extent as when the above article was published. March was especially violent.
Through July 4 2010, murder up 12.3%, rape 12.7%. There was a large drop in 2009, and the rate this year is lower than 2008, so 2009 may have been an anomaly.
If these numbers hold throughout the year, people will be watching 2011 to see if a trend develops.
compstat
I'm not going to debate the merits of your post in general, but I'd like to point out something about this part of your statement. The people who buy the fakes and the people who buy the originals are not the same people. Never. Not once.
It's like comparing someone who goes to an art auction to buy a rare painting with someone who goes to art.com to buy a poster of the same painting.
Different people, different products, different reasons for buying them.
Edit: I now notice that this was a really old thread/post that got necroed recently.
Ken, I wasn't saying that.
Here's the bottom line. Rich people buy something based on the impression it will give. There are MANY examples of this. The name matters to them, in some cases, more than what they are actually buying.
That frames the importance humans place on appearance and image. The perception of the item being more important than its function or construction.
That being the case, other people ALSO want this. They cannot afford it. They buy a cheap imitation of it, not for the quality of construction, function or use, but for the APPEARANCE.
Our society (and human beings in general) have this warped sense of value that feeds on it. If people valued the construction of an item more than its outer appearance or the image they believe it conveys, there would not be a market for fakes.
It is just a shame that we do not buy on the "quality" scale with these things. But, I guess, how important is it to have a "well constructed, ergonomically functional" handbag?
I also think this was thread-merged with one from Sherpa......
The homicide rate did trend up in 2011 to over 500 for the year, but dropped significantly in 2012 to 417, the lowest level in 40 years.
So far for the first quarter of 2013, homicides are down 26.6% compared to the first quarter of 2012. If that rate continues, NYC will have recorded 306 homicides for the year.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloa...ics/cscity.pdf.
Most homicides occur at night, the peak between 11PM and 1:30AM.
It's been a cold winter. We need a graph, correlating temperatures to crime.
Jan-Mar of this year hasn't been especially cold; it's similar to 2011. The winter of 2012 was unusually warm.
If you use the argument that the rate decreased this year because it has been colder than 2012, it fails when you try to explain the big decrease from 2011 to 2012 when it was warmer.
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