In these post recession times, corporations, even high end exclusive ones like Balenciaga, Burberry and Louboutin are cutting costs.

At the same time they are raising prices, sometimes mor ethan 20%-30% year over year!  Much of the production of luxury goods such as handbags, shoes, and clothing is outsourced to China or other Asian countries with cheap labor.

While many products will still carry an exclusive “Made In Italy” or “Made In France” tag, the quality of the materials or the quality of the craftsmanship are not the same as before.

Just check out this review of a Burberry Prorsum handbag to see the poor quality in materials.

The days are gone when you could have depended on high end designer brands to provide luxury goods with the best materials and construction.  It is also impossible to guess how the products will hold up based on the country of origin.

These days you will have to be more careful and scour the web to see what other people have to say.  I like forums like the purse forums because the users there will post about their negative experiences with everything from the bag itself to customer service and service requests.