The price tags in chain stores now make Gucci seem affordable. What’s going on?
In late October, the day after the press preview of the Balmain x H&M collection, some idiot from this paper queried whether the price tags of these bejewelled party dresses and pearl-encrusted jackets were too high for their target high-street customers. “Four hundred pounds is a lot to pay for a dress for which you will probably have to queue from dawn on a cold November morning,” she wrote, archly.
Last week, when those £400 dresses finally went on sale, shoppers from Seoul to Paris camped overnight to pay for them. Outside the Oxford Street store, opportunist traders were reselling the most expensive pieces for three times face value within an hour of them going on sale. On eBay, prices for those dresses are now in four figures.
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