A dress for $140,000?

The increasingly traumatic distribution of wealth in society is sharply apparent in the fashion industry. At one end we have Shein, with its ultra low cost, high volume model of plastic clothing that is finished and dyed with cheap, toxic chemistry. Here you can buy a top from as little as £6.99.

At the other, we have luxury fashion, focusing on an UHNW client that has limitless cash to blow should the desire take her. Evidence the below dress, part of the new Dior Cruise collection. One cannot imagine a client wearing this dress to more than a couple of occasions, (quelle horreur she should be spotted wearing the same thing twice), which is all the more wasteful when you consider the dress costs US$140,000.

As Amy Odell wrote recently: “How can this dress cost the same as four New New Bottega skirts, four years of college tuition at a state school, or this boat billed as “the pinnacle of pontoon luxury”? And perhaps more importantly, what is this brand thinking selling this dress for the price of something you can mortgage, particularly when Dior CEO Delphine Arnault recently said the brand had been “very cautious” about prices?”