In 2025, Exposés debunking façades of Western superiority are occurring at dizzying speed, some showing that Trump’s Whitehouse spokesperson wore a dress made in China, or that European Luxury bags are also made in the East Asian industrial powerhouse.
80% Made in China
What can Developing Countries Learn?
The recent cascade of exposés debunking Western societies’ lies can be particularly eye-opening to people in developing countries who are looking for a workable model for their societies. Traditionally, some political and economic shows in Africa have bombarded viewers with statements that the Western development, production, and economic models are the best and must be emulated. However, such assertions are appearing baseless as information surrounding increasing drug abuse, homelessness, and mass shootings in The West continues to reach Africans through social media. Among the last facades that the US and Europe were able to uphold was that their societies lived better overall and that they still made high-quality, luxurious items, including handbags. However, Americans’ mass migration to the Chinese App Red Note in January 2025 showed them that the Chinese’ had better living standards.
Additionally, the recent revelation that America’s Whitehouse Spokesperson wore a dress made in China despite spitting vitriol against the Asian industrial giant shows that Western society buys at least some of its luxury items from abroad. It also shows that elites in The West are confused and oblivious of where its fashion items come from, adding credence to the revelation that the class has been purchasing supposed ‘European Luxury’ bags made in China. Still, the notion that a handbag can cost $40000, just below the price of Tesla Model Y or Rav 4 vehicles, simply because it is purportedly handmade by a European artisan is insane. It shows a societal model without value for labor and materials, probably because it steals raw materials while underpaying labor from developing countries. Developing countries cannot adopt such a deleterious model.
European Luxury Brands have been established on unsustainable exploitation of labor, covered up by their governance systems. The Exposés in 2025 add to those from 2024, when an investigation revealed that the French LVMH, which owns Dior, was also exploiting Cheap labor from the Chinese through subcontractors in Milan, such that its products were not made by the supposed expensive European artisans. The subcontractors were found mistreating workers, exposing them to long working shifts and providing inadequate sleeping conditions. Investigators in Milan also noted that Armani, among other luxury brands, also subcontracted to smaller firms to exploit cheap labor. They also found that LVMH’s cost of production was 1/50 of its prices, revealing plain conning of clients who were misled that such high prices were to cater to European artisans. LVMH got away with only a lame explanation that it was not aware of its subcontractors’ misconduct and was henceforth put under court administration. The court, while addressing the violations in LVMH and Armani, concluded that this practice had become a consolidated method used by fashion brands, which would proceed to charge their customers 50 times their production costs.
Still Unrepentant and Adamant
Hermes, in response to the revelation of its untrustworthy behavior, released a section of a video released 4 months ago, showing its rural workshop in France with a dozen workers, and trying to convince its audiences that the small workforce produces all its products including saddles, clothing, scurf’s and handbags, which makes no sense. The interviewee claimed that the firm has other workshops, but audiences cannot verify that information. However, the uncanny similarities between the Hermes Birkin bag displayed in the workshop and the one shown in Chinese factories must not be ignored. Since other European luxury brands have been found by courts to be exploiting cheap labor, Hermes may do it. Products it presents as being produced at a leisurely pace by highly skilled Europeans have turned out to be mass-produced by exploiting Chinese workers.
Unsustainable Products and Attitude
European elites who cannot stand working or producing for humanity have developed and perfected a model that has disenfranchised many people for profits, and developing societies must avoid it. For instance, the European luxury industry has disenfranchised European workers by shipping jobs abroad or giving them to exploited immigrants in small towns. Also, it has marginalized the Chinese workers who produce these items while receiving a tiny amount from each item. Importantly, it has alienated customers who end up buying mass-produced items at 50 to 2000 times the cost of production in the name of rewarding skilled European artisans.
The European luxury industry is also environmentally unsustainable, as it monetizes pushing some animals close to extinction, since the value of some items increases with the rarity of the skin used. These luxury brands have marketed their products as being made from leather from rare reptiles such as the Varanus salvator lizard, showing an attitude of being in a race to cause extinction for profit. Also, it is dependent on transport, which increases emissions, since items made in China are transported to Europe, which would be avoided if they were made in Europe. European Luxury bags have been sold in auctions for hundreds of thousands of US dollars based on claims of being embellished with precious jewelry that does not contribute to their practical use, showing high levels of vanity sometimes using jewelry obtained through war. Still, it is unclear whether Europeans pay commensurately to obtain raw materials or rely on illegal means such as poaching and plunder. Developing countries cannot reasonably model their societies around lies, unsustainability, and vanity seen in the European Luxury Industry.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
