Interesting question, Syb! Although actually, I think it's the OPPOSITE of the Iskia feather charm... in terms of imperialism or colonialism. With something like the feather charm, you have the colonizER fetishizing something taken from the colonizED. With Cargo Cults, it's the opposite. "Primitive" (quotes DEEPLY intended!) groups fetishizing the detritus of "Civilized" groups (quotes ALSO deeply intended!).
I don't think it's pseudo-intellectual or crap... it's funny, and in a lot of ways self-ironic. I love that you said the emperor's new clothes... I think that's a great place for a designer to find inspiration if they don't take themselves too seriously. The stuff real "cargo cults" would pick up and fetishize was just the detritus of civilizations... the bits and pieces that held planes together or luggage... not very important stuff, certainly not things those in the civilized groups would really value. The classic example is the Coke bottle in The Gods Must be Crazy. The point, of course, is that the "primitive" groups are far more civilized...
But I know a lot more about pseudo-intellectual crap
than I do fashion... I dunno. I like that a given season or collection has a metaphor or governing idea. That's how I create when I write... I think in a lot of ways creating art (and granted, we're not really talking about art here, but handbags and I'm not sure they do/should qualify) is about solving problems. Not real-world ones, but philosophical ones. If I were deconstructing (loosely and somewhat inappropriately using the term) their use of Cargo Cults as a metaphor, I'd say that the copy about "collectors" aside, they're making a pretty interesting comment on the heart of what they do... whether fashion really has any real meaning or whether it's useless detritus.
(Sorry! Throw a question like that out there and I just salivate... no one TALKS about stuff like this any more!! Even if we disagree about it, it's a great conversation!)