How luxury became ghetto fabulous

BRAND THEFT AUTO A Louis Vuitton emblazoned Oldsmobile Cutlass

There was a time when Louis Vuitton steamer trunks carried the wares of Vanderbilts and Rockefellers across the Atlantic. Now, the trademark logo is just as likely to be found on the arm of a teenage mallrat as it is in Brooke Astor's estate sale.

"They want middle-market consumers to buy, buy, buy low-cost, high mark-up items, but they aren't so keen to have rappers embracing their goods"
In her new best-selling book, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, Newsweek reporter Dana Thomas chronicles the decline of Europe's most storied fashion houses—such as Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Prada—from their rarefied pasts to the billion dollar conglomerates that control them today."Most people are buying these brands but they don't know anything about them," says Thomas, who modeled her book on Eric Schlosser's burger and fries jeremiad Fast Food Nation. Thomas traveled to Europe to meet the likes of Miuccia Prada and LVMH head Bernard Arnault before visiting their factories in China, where most of the industry's mass production is now performed. "That's the side of the industry luxury executives aren't happy about," she explains. "They want middle-market consumers to buy, buy, buy a logo-covered wallet and key rings and low-cost, high mark-up items, but they aren't so keen to have rappers embracing their goods."

The feeling is evidently not mutual, as rappers, B-list starlets, and everyday people are increasingly the ones flaunting designer wares. From Chavs to Lil' Kim, Radar looks back at great moments in the democratization of luxury.

THE LIBERTINE Pete Doherty models Burberry. The image-conscious company may wish he'd leave that to Kate Moss

Burberry vs. The Chavs
In 1856, Thomas Burberry opened a small outfitting shop in Hampshire, England. One hundred and fifty years later, the Burberry trench coat, with its distinctive beige checkered pattern and more than $2,000 price tag, became the gold standard of British fashion. So when "Chavs," hip-hop obsessed, working class youths in the UK (think Ali G) adopted the pattern as their status symbol of choice, Burberry was horrified. The company retaliated in 2004 by pulling their patterned baseball hats, a Chav favorite, and launching a PR campaign to brand all Chav-worn Burberry as counterfeit. Despite the company's preoccupation with image, they didn't seem to mind spokesmodel Kate Moss blowing half of Colombia up her nose. After initially dropping Moss, they reinstated her contract and creative director Christopher Bailey declared that Kate, unlike the Chavs drinking White Lightning down on the Camden Lock, was "absolutely" part of the Burberry family.

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