don’t care for them. the only things i care about are:

• is the quality good
• is it not overpriced crap
• is it ethical
• does it look nice

everything else is secondary

I don’t think they are at all.

I occasionally splurge on “ethical” brands, locally made from natural locally sourced materials etc. That has some worth to me, but it’s so expensive for me.

There is literally no difference between the “luxury” clothing/accessory brands and the mainstream ones. They’re made by the same people in the same Chinese factories using the same materials. Indeed at one point, in the first Orange Presidency, when the USA slapped its ridiculous tariffs on everything the first time, several Chinese factories did revenge runs where they produced “Louis Vuitton”, “Chanel”, “Hermes”, “Dior” products, complete with the authenticity tags (!) and sold them at a tenth the usual cost (which still made them more money than the brands paid them to produce the goods), showing video of their production of masses of these “luxury” branded goods.

The exclusivity marketing around these sham brands is one of the greatest marketing campaigns in history, rivalling the artificial bacon astroturfing, though still falling way behind De Beers’ “A Diamond is Forever” gig disguising the bloody and violent conditions that surround the artificial shortage of diamonds.

It’s better to just buy brands that are honest. They cost a lot less and are not built on a foundation of lies and racist claims.

Brands are for poor people. They are worth it if there are poor people that will look up to you for having them whose opinion you care about.

Rich people don’t use brands as a proxy for quality; they hire people to find the stuff they want and those people do the work of finding good stuff.

If you are poor, you can approximate this process by asking friends where they get their stuff.

It is obviously very subjective and it depends what you want out of it…

If you are buying generic branded stuff with obvious branding then you are just paying for the brand itself so that you can signal it to others. At that point, no, not worth it. You can get the exact same design, pattern etc. from other, cheaper, brands. The only “worth” here is showing you are part of that in-crowd, it is basically the same thing as wearing a team’s football shirt. The worth is purely because of the brand name.

Sometimes you are paying for a particular design. The quality might not be worth the money but if you are after a very particular style and that style is worth you paying extra then sure, that can be worth it. The kind of clothes where it is obvious if you are wearing a compromised “knock-off”. I think this category is more obvious for accessories like handbags, purses, jewellery etc. but certainly some coats, shoes etc. fall into this.

Then you just go into the world where luxury just means no compromise and then I can get it. Stuff that just doesn’t really have a “cheap” equivalent. You pay for the brand, design and the quality and at that point, if that is what you want, then it is absolutely worth it.

The only time I’ve ever bought “luxury” brands was when I found them in shops like Winners (TJ Maxx in the USA). Sometimes it’s been a good buy, sometimes I think “Huh, glad I didn’t pay the full suggested retail price”.

I mean if it lasts a long time I think it’s worth it. But I am way too poor to be buying designer.

I don’t have the money for real luxury goods, and definitely not for the faux luxury stuff. Most luxury stuff I just don’t get the appeal, I like having more standout look to me, so I like finding things that no one really has. So trying to be in the “in-group” doesn’t work for me.

Most of my clothes are thrifted, including my football jerseys I own (shout out to the local vintage clothing store), I’m able to find some nice stuff when I go thrifting. Shoes are the only major exception even then though I got most of them on sale. A few pairs were rescued from sitting in boxes at my mom’s house, didn’t want them to go to waste now.

Most of my accessories were either cheap ones, on sale, thrifted for the bags, gifted to me (one of my women and gender studies professors gave me a bracelet that says “cunt” on it for international woman’s day a few years ago, love that bracelet and that professor), or I made them.

That’s enough yapping for now, hope this wasn’t too much of me rambling.

I think it really depends on what you are going for and what the item is.

For every day stuff? Luxury brands don’t matter. My every day clothes will get beat up when I do things like gardening or regular tasks.

For more formal and special attire? It could mean a little bit more. I have a gorgeous luxury brand that I can’t remember now dress that I picked up a few years ago, which is now my “going to a wedding dress. I also have a Michael Kors knee length black pea coat that fits well and is lovely and a similar pea coat in forest green that I absolutely adore and was worth every penny.

I have a few pieces that are luxury brands, but most of my clothes are from regular department stores or thrift shops.