Katharine K Zarrella

Pedestrians pass a Louis Vuitton luxury fashion store on New Bond Street in central London London, UK, on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. Demand for Christmas workers was barely higher in October than when Britain was in recession a year earlier, in a fresh sign of trouble for Europe’s second-largest economy. Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

Obscene prices, declining quality: Luxury is in a death spiral

Many high-end labels have broken the principles that made them so successful