IS HIGH FASHION A SCAM? OR ARE WE JUST NOT ON THE LIST?
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July 21, 2025
by Mai El Mokadem
High fashion is either the ultimate art form or the world’s most successful scam. Depending on who you ask,
it’s a divine performance of self-expression, or just a stitched-up pyramid scheme with high-end lighting.
Luxury was once untouchable— a gilded universe only the chosen few could enter. Now? It’s under a very public microscope, and
the seams are quite literally coming undone. Add in exposés about “Made in China” production, tariffs loopholes, and the quiet disappointment that comes from buying a “grail” only to find it peeling in six months… and a once-unthinkable question starts floating through the culture: Is high fashion still worth the hype? Or is it just a misunderstood art form wearing a $4,500 price tag and a faint whiff of superiority?
Let’s backtrack. In theory, high fashion earns its price tag, with artisanal craftsmanship, rare materials, heritage ateliers, and
bleeding-edge design. The greats—Schiaparelli, Galliano, Kawakubo—have treated fashion like sculpture, theatre, rebellion.
The issue is, today’s reality doesn’t always match the fantasy.
First, let’s acknowledge the obsession. High fashion has inspired a kind of religious devotion. People camp outside Dior, treat the arrival of a new collection like the second coming, and say things like “Galliano walked so the rest could crawl” without a hint of irony. Entire Instagram accounts now exist just to analyze the archival significance of some model’s stockings. And we get it. There’s history.
Craft. The drama of it all.
This level of obsession is earned, to some extent. Fashion, when done well, isn’t just about fabric. It’s a language of its own, a societal rebellion, a time capsule. Rei Kawakubo didn’t spend decades making aggressively lopsided silhouettes for you to call it "just clothes." Alexander McQueen staged Shakespearean-level runway operas. High fashion once meant something. But what happens when the meaning starts fraying?
It’s 2025. We’ve got 3D printing, TikTok tailors, AI-generated designs, and small indie brands putting out stuff that’s fresh, personal,
and way more ethical. Meanwhile, legacy brands are still charging four figures for a cotton tee with a logo on it and acting like they invented God’s thread count. So… are we buying design? Prestige? Or just the performance of luxury?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: today, a lot of luxury fashion is made using the same manufacturing systems as your high-street basics. With a much higher markup.
The "Made in Italy" label often comes from items that were assembled 95% in China or Bangladesh and then finished with a single stitch in a Tuscan factory, just to earn that sticker. The China-America tariff drama only made that clearer.
See, thanks to tariff loopholes and a whole lot of clever branding gymnastics, some major luxury houses only need to finish a product in Europe to legally label it as Italian- or French-made. So your $1,200 “Parisian” belt? Might’ve spent 90% of its life being assembled in a Guangdong factory before getting its final buckle blessed by someone in Florence.
That doesn’t mean the quality is automatically bad—some Chinese factories are incredibly skilled—but the markup is what starts to feel… sus. Like, how did a leather wallet that cost $35 to manufacture end up on a shelf at Bergdorf Goodman for $890? Then there’s Chanel using plastic pearls and synthetic linings but still charging the price of a used car.
Even worse? When brands do cut corners and the quality takes a dive, we’re still expected to eat it with a thank-you smile because—ooh!—heritage! Legacy! Craftsmanship! But at a certain point, it starts feeling less like art and more like glosssed gaslighting.
With 3D printers, AI-generated patterns, and a YouTube crash course on draping, anyone can (technically) design now.
So why do high-end designers still get their cake and eat it too? The answer? Cultural capital. High fashion isn't always (rather, seldom) about the item itself. It’s about the symbolism of it. Wearing a Loewe balloon dress or a quiet-luxury The Row coat says something about your taste, your awareness, your income bracket. It tells a story. Even if that story involves secretly Googling "how to pronounce Givenchy" five minutes before brunch. That story is tightly controlled. These brands are masterful storytellers.
A Jacquemus show isn’t a product reveal, it’s a short film. Bottega Veneta doesn’t need a logo; the weave is the brand.
When you buy Loewe, you’re buying into Jonathan Anderson’s sculptural weirdness.
To reduce fashion to “just clothes” is like saying books are just paper. Fashion, at its core, is a living, breathing archive of culture.
It’s how we process history, gender, rebellion, religion, status, softness, sharpness, contradiction.
The cut of a blazer, the choice of fabric, a bare shoulder, a covered head, these are not just aesthetic decisions, they’re essays out of a certain time and place. Designers like Alexander McQueen didn’t just make dresses; they carved out critique, of beauty standards, of nationalism, of death and desire. Even newer players, like Telfar, turn the runway into a forum for Black identity and accessibility.
What you wear can be a protest, a love letter, a joke, or a survival tactic.
When people say “fashion isn’t that deep,” what they really mean is, “I haven’t been paying attention.” Fashion is a mirror
(sometimes, a magnifying glass) for what we value, fear, and want to become. It tells us who’s included and who’s not.
And the high fashion world, for all its issues, has always known that it’s not just dressing bodies, it’s dressing ideologies.
Luxury fashion isn’t just expensive clothing. It’s a carefully preserved mythology. But that mythology’s been cracked open by a wave of books that read like exposés. In Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, Dana Thomas lays it bare: most so-called “Italian-made” goods are mass-produced in Asia, while brands still charge rent-sized prices for the illusion of artisanal touch. Her follow-up, Gods and Kings, dives into the tortured genius trope behind designers like Galliano and McQueen—brilliant, yes, but devoured by the fashion machine they helped fuel. These aren’t fluffy coffee table books—they’re the receipts behind the runway.
Once upon a time, questioning high fashion felt like heresy. Now? It’s practically a TikTok genre. Scroll your FYP and you’ll see it: disappointed hauls, luxury unboxings gone wrong, and creators pulling out their ring lights to show you—up close—just how bad that $7,000 handbag actually is. We’re talking crooked stitching, cheap-feeling hardware, peeling leather, and linings that look like they came straight from a fast fashion bin.
And people aren’t quiet about it. One viral clip showed a Chanel bag’s strap breaking on day two. Another user compared a Dior shirt
to a $40 Zara knockoff and Zara won. It’s chaos. And kind of cathartic. What used to live behind velvet ropes and glass cases is now being put to the same test as a Shein crop top. Often, failing.
For Gen Z (and younger millennials who’ve aged out of brand worship), quality isn’t just about the label—it’s about performance.
If you’re charging rent money for a purse, it better not shed like a Pomeranian after two wears. The thing is: high fashion was never just about clothes. It’s about belonging to an elite club, one interlaced with old money, whispered references, and seasonal power moves.
And even if you can afford to shop there now, the system still makes sure you know you’re not really inside. It feels like a scam.
But a glamorous one. The kind you want to fall for… just once.
Some luxury pieces fall apart like wet Kleenex. But let’s not throw the whole couture atelier out with the overpriced bathwater.
Some high fashion is still breathtaking. Not mass-produced logo hoodies or polyester “resort” dresses, but the kind of pieces that take 700 hours to make and require five artisans just to embroider a single sleeve. Like Maison Margiela’s Artisanal line, Schiaparelli’s surrealist gowns, Iris van Herpen’s nature-tech-inspired masterpieces that look like they were grown in a 3D-printed coral reef.
There’s also history. When you wear a McQueen coat, you’re tapping into a legacy of rebellion. When you buy a Comme des Garçons piece, you’re engaging with fashion as sculpture. That means something—to collectors, archivists, creatives, and yes,
even the occasional ultra-rich person with a soul. These pieces aren’t about everyday wear—they’re about vision, storytelling, obsession. A Margiela jacket might be made from broken teacups and trauma. A couture gown might involve hand-sewn feathers dyed in gold and pink champagne. The true magic? It still exists. You just have to dig past the logo tees to find it.
So is it a scam? Well… yes. And no. And kind of, but also maybe that’s the point?
It’s a scam if you believe the price tag guarantees quality. It doesn’t. But it’s not a scam if you understand that high fashion is less about material goods and more about immaterial meaning. You’re buying entry into a story, a world, a self-image.
The trick is not to worship blindly. Know what you're buying. Call out the greenwashing, the shady supply chains, the creative theft, and the disintegrating quality. But also? Let yourself love it. High fashion is flawed. It’s sacred. It’s ridiculous. It’s aspirational.
It’s performative. It’s contradictory as hell.
The scam is the spectacle, and we’re all just here for the show.