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The following is an extract from a Pierre Bergé New York Times interview in 2015.

First, I want to say this: The time of Chanel, Balenciaga, Dior and, of course, Yves (Saint Laurent), well, that time is over. Second, so too is the era of haute couture. Completely over, gone. This is why what we call luxe today is just ridiculous. To me, that whole industry now—all money and marketing—is all something like a lie. But people's perception of what luxury is has changed in such an extraordinary way. Their conception of what is fashion is so different now from the sort of fashion that Yves created—that I created with him. That no longer exists. A handbag that a woman takes with her all over the place—to a grocery store, through the airport—I cannot imagine how that can be considered luxury. That is not luxury.²²

Coming from someone who has been one of the major actors of the luxury industry for 40 years, this is quite an unexpected but extremely relevant statement. Pierre Bergé, co-founder of the brand Yves Saint Laurent, was only reflecting what a lot of luxury consumers are feeling too: weariness and perplexity in front of the existential paradox of most of the self-called luxury brands that propose industrial products manufactured and distributed in great volume and marketed as luxury products in terms of communication and price.