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Deluxe
- How Luxury Lost Its Luster
- Narrated by: Dana Thomas
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's summary
Once luxury was available only to the rarefied and aristocratic world of old money and royalty. It offered a history of tradition, superior quality, and a pampered buying experience. Today, however, luxury is simply a product packaged and sold by multibillion-dollar global corporations focused on growth, visibility, brand awareness, advertising, and, above all, profits.
Award-winning journalist Dana Thomas digs deep into the dark side of the luxury industry to uncover all the secrets that Prada, Gucci, and Burberry don’t want us to know. Deluxe is an uncompromising look behind the glossy façade that will enthrall anyone interested in fashion, finance, or culture.
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In February 2011 John Galliano, the lauded head of Christian Dior, imploded with a drunken, anti-Semitic public tirade. Exactly a year earlier, celebrated designer Alexander McQueen took his own life three weeks before his women's wear show. Both were casualties of the war between art and commerce that has raged within fashion for the last two decades.
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Captivating
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Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
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Performance
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Story
Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
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Missing some important angles
- By D. Zimmerle on 08-19-21
By: Alec MacGillis
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Why We Buy, Updated and Revised Edition
- The Science of Shopping
- By: Paco Underhill
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 12 hrs
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Performance
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Revolutionary retail guru Paco Underhill is back with a completely revised edition of his classic, witty, best-selling book on our ever-evolving consumer culture—full of fresh observations and important lessons from the cutting edge of retail, which is taking place in the world’s emerging markets.
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Author has knowledge but poor writing skills
- By Nidhi on 06-25-11
By: Paco Underhill
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The Glossy Years
- Magazines, Museums and Selective Memoirs
- By: Nicholas Coleridge
- Narrated by: Nicholas Coleridge
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Over his 30-year career at Condé Nast, Nicholas Coleridge has witnessed it all. From the anxieties of the Princess of Wales to the blazing fury of Mohamed Al-Fayed, his story is also the story of the people who populate the glamorous world of glossy magazines. With relish and astonishing candour, he offers the inside scoop on Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, David Bowie and Philip Green, Kate Moss and Beyonce and a surreal weekend away with Bob Geldof and William Hague.
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A superfun inside look @ world of magazine editors
- By AminaRuhle on 10-05-20
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KasiNomic Revolution
- The Rise of African Informal Economies
- By: GG Alcock
- Narrated by: GG Alcock
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Prepare for this new generation, prepare for the Afripolitan Generation. A revolution is taking place in the great marketplaces of the informal sector and it contains an unquantified scale and power as an economic engine and a way of life for the majority of our low-income populations. The KasiNomic Revolution may still be a murmur in the streets, a grassroots economic groundswell, but it is the future of African economic activity.
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Exciting and Eye Opening
- By Hendrik on 12-11-23
By: GG Alcock
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The Art of Business Wars
- Battle-Tested Lessons for Leaders and Entrepreneurs from History's Greatest Rivalries
- By: David Brown
- Narrated by: David Brown
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
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Performance
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Based on the chart-topping Business Wars podcast, stories, and lessons from history’s greatest business rivalries, interspersed with audio clips from the podcast. Using Chinese military genius Sun Tzu’s strategies as a guide, Brown examines why some companies triumph while others crumble....
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Just a repeat of the pod cast…..
- By Vm2008 on 02-01-22
By: David Brown
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Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
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Performance
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In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
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A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
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Primal Branding
- Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future
- By: Patrick Hanlon
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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What is it that made Starbucks an overnight sensation and separated it from other coffee house companies? Why do many products with great product innovation, perfect locations, terrific customer experiences, even breakthrough advertising, fail to get the same visceral traction in the marketplace as brands like Apple and Nike?
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Good book, hard to stay interested
- By Axiom Brevity on 11-21-16
By: Patrick Hanlon
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Audacity of Hops
- The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution
- By: Tom Acitelli, Tony Magee - foreword
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 19 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Based on extensive archival research as well as interviews with the movement's key players going back to the 1960s, this acclaimed book is the most comprehensive chronicle yet of one of the most interesting and lucrative culinary trends in the US since World War II. Acitelli weaves the story of the rise of American craft beer into the tales of trends like Slow Food and the rebirth of America's urban areas, and paints an unforgettable portrait of plucky entrepreneurial triumph.
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learned a lot of information
- By Derek b. on 05-19-24
By: Tom Acitelli, and others
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Richistan
- A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich
- By: Robert Frank
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The rich have always been different from you and me, but this revealing and funny journey through Richistan entertainingly shows that they are more different than ever. Richistanis have 400-foot-yachts, 30,000-square-foot homes, house staffs of more than 100, and their own "arborists". They're also different from Old Money, and have torn down blue-blood institutions to build their own shining empire.
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Ho Hum....being rich is work!
- By Scarlett on 06-16-07
By: Robert Frank
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Appetite for America
- Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West - One Meal at a Time
- By: Stephen Fried
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey - told in depth for the first time ever. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name. With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding.
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I loved listening to this fabulous story!
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 01-27-20
By: Stephen Fried
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Fun and immersive -- despite the narrator
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Could have been better if it was a shorter book
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Fantastic and honest perspective sometimes anaemic.
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Fun and immersive -- despite the narrator
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Superb
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At 12 years old, Cornelius secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. Five years later, as his father, Herman, lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself as Professor John Woman and spreading Herman's teachings. But some are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and they might know something about the facts of his hidden past.
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Walter Mosley Delivers
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Born Extraordinary
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Meg Zucker was born with one finger on each hand, shortened forearms, and one toe on each misshapen foot, caused by a genetic condition called ectrodactyly. She would eventually pass this condition on to her two sons, and, along with her husband, raise them and their adopted daughter, who has her own invisible differences. Born of the family’s hard-won experiences, this book offers invaluable advice on raising confident, empathetic, and resilient children who succeed, not despite but because of their differences.
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Eloquent and relatable storytelling - must read
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What listeners say about Deluxe
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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- Robyn
- 08-12-23
Insightful, enjoyable, tragic in some ways
I read this book when it first came out and really enjoyed it. Dana Thomas' insight into the luxury market (of which there is little authentic luxury left) is thorough and well-researched. On a recent road trip, I decided to download the audio version and 'read' it again. This book came out before the author's book "Fashionopolis" . . . another excellent book.
I enjoyed how the author organized the book and was sorry to see it come to an end. The only criticism I have is the author should have reconsidered being the narrator. Too many times she stopped in the middle of a sentence as though she was unsure what she was reading. Did she not prepare to read her own book? It just made the audiobook version come off as a bit amatuerish.
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- Jake
- 01-24-23
High and low quality in the fashion industry
This book specifically has to do with the fashion industry, and if that is at all an interest to you, I would recommend this book. It is a history of why things have changed, for which she ultimately attributes to finances. What is specifically absent is information regarding luxury goods outside of fashion, although one can assume the examples the author gives can be extrapolated to a wide variety of goods. It would have also been nice to have consulted an economist, or financial expert to include their opinion on the topic.
Where the book struggles is the narration...anytime an author narrates their own book this is a red flag, and for good reason. Outside of autobiography's I almost wish Audible would ban authors from doing this. It would be akin to an author of a novel who has no acting experience demanding that they play the lead role in a movie adaption of their book instead of an A-list celebrity. Simply put, as an author you can't outperform a professional voice actor. Let them do what they're good at (voice acting), and you do what you're good at (writing the book). As for specifics, there are long gaps inbetween sentences that detract from the listening experience and break the immersion. If you try to increase the playback speed, she is hard to understand because it's not her rate of speech that is slow.
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- Elaine
- 01-04-24
Interesting material, terrible narration
I largely enjoyed the material and the presentation of ideas. What I found extremely off-putting was the author's narration: stilted pauses in the middle of sentences, mispronounced words and garbled diction all greatly diminished my enjoyment of this audiobook.
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- JOHN WILLIAMS
- 08-24-23
my favorite book
I absolutely loved this. out of the fifteen books I've read this year, this is my favorite. I'm currently living in Japan with my spouse for a few years and the Going Global chapter made me laugh because it gave the best description of a Japanese consumer. I have never seen so many LVs before living in Tokyo.
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- Rehlander Reviews
- 10-09-24
What’s the thesis here?
Narration is terrible. The book itself is interesting and informative, but the overall thesis is largely missing. Good info; didn’t tell me anything I couldn’t have figured out as a consumer.
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- lorrrraaaaine
- 01-23-22
If buying luxury, go Richemont or Kering not LV MH
This is the singularly MOST important book about the luxury fashion industry ever written period. Although released in 2008, it is very much current other than the fact Colette the multi-brand French luxury retailer disappeared, along with similar retailers like Barney’s, Jeffrey & Louis of Boston to name a few, since it was written. There are many perturbing reasons for the closures & it’s a genuine loss & I will refrain from opining at great length, but if you read this masterwork written by Dana Thomas, & study the history you can probably figure out how we got here.
Multi-brand luxury boutiques act like IRL magazine editors in dictating individual editorial viewpoints & giving designers big & small a platform. The loss of these specialized retailers squelches innovation & business. The fashion industry, the part charged with making clothing specifically, is a giant mess. One of the avant-garde multi-brand luxury owners I worked for, for a very short minute, said something I’m still cogitating decades later. She claimed that runway designers had only 1 or at most 2 designs each collection deemed to be truly great, which through decades of observation appears to be a true proclamation.
Being a fashion designer is a thankless job which is why I assume Ann Demuelemeester, Helmut Lang & Martin Margiela quit in order to pursuit creating art instead. I am in awe of Dolce&Gabbana, DVN, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo & Armani for still standing. Even Gaultier, my absolute all time favorite, has thrown in the towel on ready-to-wear because the pace is too frenetic. It’s 2022, not 1992 & things have changed but the fashion system hasn’t kept up. The entire thing is absurd.
Tbh, this book isn’t just for fashion people, although it will be much easier to understand the minutiae if you are familiar with the designers & retailers mentioned. For example, if you aren’t familiar with Helmut Newton & haven’t seen the 1977 editorial fashion spread, it would be difficult to understand the impact it had on reviving Hermes. Deluxe is very multi-layered in this way. Not mentioned in this book, but Dolce & Gabbana started out by showing their collection out of their home according to friends who bought one of their first collections for their boutique. It’s really the specialized “boutiques” that first discovered the new designers only to be later poached by the big department stores. The industry of yesteryear has endless interesting stories & Deluxe features many fun ones. Not sure which client told me this as I’ve never worked for Ralph Lauren, but this book was supposedly required reading for everyone who worked for Lauren. I’m assuming it was the executives & perhaps the designers as it would be the most relevant to them?
Anybody who is interested in economics, business, retail of any kind, design history, Hollywood, sociology or enjoyed Peter S. Goodman’s Davos Man will find this book worthwhile. Although quite frankly I think everybody should read or listen to it as it is a gem.
I am not going to write a scathing opinion about the world’s 2nd richest man, but as someone who fell in love with fashion design first by way of Hubert de Givenchy & Christian Dior, the story of the hostile takeovers contained in these pages…. infuriating & despicable. Dana Thomas already so bravely wrote all you need to know, & she & other what I am going to call “avant-garde” journalists who speak truth to power are my heroes. Supporting their work is essential as they are the people with the real balls.
Raf Simons & Riccardo Tisci, 2 of my favorite newer, current & still working designers, being no longer employed under that rat’s umbrella brings a bit of joy. Vodka, cognac & champagne are terrible for the kidneys, liver & heart regardless of any perceived premium quality. Monogram logo patterns are tacky & 2 academic books for further reading on the meaning of such types of “luxury” items & why people buy them can be found in Grant McCracken’s “Culture & Consumption” & Pierre Bourdieu’s tome “Distinction”. Times are still a changing…
It’s fascinating to look at the difference in the brand portfolios between Richemont & LVMH & Dana Thomas explains all. Story of Miuccia Prada which I had forgotten, was also quite intriguing. Rumor had it in the early 2000’s she was taking vintage dresses & directly copying their pattern blocks & I don’t know if it’s actually true, but based on the styles released at the time & her lack of formal design training, it’s quite possible! According to my purchase history I read this first in 2011 pre-Audible, & loved it so much I purchased 3 more to give as gifts.
Second time around I am listening to it, & somehow it is more shocking to hear than read.
If you’re going to buy luxury, Richemont companies would get my first vote, with Kering brands my begrudging second. There are also still mostly independent luxury clothing companies that exist out there such as Rick Owens, Tom Ford, Paul Smith, Dolce & Gabbana, Kiton, Louboutin & Dries Van Noten.
For fragrance I would have in the past recommended Creed, but after a quick search come to see that the 260 year family owned company was acquired by Blackrock in 2020, so I expect the quality will degrade after they put their cost cutting measures in place. Quite frankly I’m also not convinced the chemicals in perfume aren’t harmful for you so I had already been dis-engaging from my love of it. (Luxury & drugstore skincare brands, including shaving creams, look at the chemicals it contains & research the impact on hormones as daily habits contribute to health. Laundry detergents too. And dry cleaning chemicals are the worst of all, proven to be cancer causing & are also very harsh on your clothes, shortening the lifespan. (There are alternatives & dry clean only labels are there merely to prevent liability. I have put countless designer dresses & cashmere in the wash but don’t wash tailored wool jackets or coats & never ever use the dryer unless it’s cotton jersey.)
Ugh. Davos man hits again. If you want to vote with your dollar, be a more informed consumer & understand how monopolies are silently being built around us everyday, definitely read this book along with Davos Man.
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- E. troupe
- 02-17-22
good Read
An enlightening read, a lot of insight in history of some the popular top luxury brands.
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- LDJ
- 09-29-20
Wow!!
Great read! Voice over was good, but mostly the book is entertaining and informative. if you are in the fashion industry in any form, this is must read.
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- Crisitna Tunon
- 10-08-21
Super interesting
This audio book was so very interesting and informative. It’s a little dated being from the early 2000s, but the general themes still apply. The narrator was painful - I’ve never used the speed up function before…even with it being at 1.1 some things were still painfully slow. She just did weird fandoms pauses..and for whatever reason could province all the names perfectly in French, but the Italian was rough sometimes. All in all, especially if you can move past the narrator, it’s totally worth it.
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- Bennett
- 01-10-22
Fascinating look at the history of luxury brands
This book is not really up to date (I’m writing this in 2022), but it doesn’t really suffer for that, as the meat of it is the history and changes over time of various brands, the people who created and sold (and sold out), and the people who purchased and used (and stole and counterfeited)-all the big names and heavy hitters in the luxury business. Thomas is a good writer and I actually enjoyed it more as an audiobook than when I read it several years ago.
Thomas has a very pleasant, low voice and (to my untutored ear) does very well with the abundance of non-English names and words. There is an occasional…hesitation? in the reading, a pause here and there that’s just the teeniest bit too long, but it’s not really frequent and didn’t impact my enjoyment of the book.
All in all I highly recommend!
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