Luxury’s Rescue Act: Why the High Street Is Now the High-Fashion Lifeline
Luxury’s newest lifeline isn’t a runway fantasy but a high-street handshake. In 2025, relevance outruns exclusivity — and every capsule drop becomes a wager: gain heat, risk mystique. The question now is who can dance with the masses without losing their aura.
Dupes, Design and The Law: When Is Inspiration Theft?
When Dunnes Stores released a €15 tote in 2024 that looked strikingly like Longchamp’s iconic Le Pliage, the debate reignited: where does inspiration end and infringement begin? Dupes aren’t counterfeits, but they blur legal and cultural lines—praised as accessible by some, condemned as theft by others. The Longchamp case may reshape fashion’s uneasy balance between originality and imitation.
After the King: Giorgio Armani’s Empire at a Crossroads
When Giorgio Armani died on 4 September 2025, Milan lost more than a designer—it lost a cultural anchor. Armani revolutionised tailoring, redefined womenswear, and built one of the last great independent fashion houses. Now his empire faces a defining test: can the foundation and inner circle he so carefully assembled preserve his ethos of discipline, restraint and independence in an industry dominated by conglomerates? Armani’s greatest creation may not have been a suit at all, but the roadmap he left behind.