Louis Vuitton's World War II ties ?

#3
Interesting article Ayla! It's really no different from the "whitewashing" they do with school textbooks. Ie. Japanese schools omitting facts abt the existence of "Comfort women" during wartime. LV just wants to erase out the ties they had w/ Nazi Germany.
 
#4
A lot of companies have done a lot of awful things.

Including American companies such as Dole Fruit.

Unfortunately, most American companies get away with how they have taken advantage of African-American slave labor. Volkswagon, several years back, was forced to pay reparations to the families of Jewish workers they forced to work in their plants. Dole Fruit has gotten away scotch free! And there are dozens more examples.
 
#5
The article doesn't change my opinion of LV. This was a long time ago. I agree with IntlSet, a lot of companies have done horrible things. Nestle ( I don't know if this is still the case) had some controversy when they tried to tell women in Africa that their baby formula was better than breast milk. Long story short a lot of babies got sick and Nestle got a lot richer.
 
#6
Yes, there are a lot of companies with murky pasts.. e.g. IBM which created a subsidy just so it could continue to do business with Germany during the second war (since American companies weren't allowed to do business), all those numbers branded on disenfranchised people were products of a custom designed, custom built IBM system.

What I don't like is the hush hush business, public apologies and reparations (in a case by case basis) shouldn't be so difficult ?
 
#7
ayla said:
What I don't like is the hush hush business, public apologies and reparations (in a case by case basis) shouldn't be so difficult ?
Click to expand...

I AGREE!


Public apologies are a must! I mean, for the good Lord's sake, take some responsibility -- even if it was a long time ago, there still should be a sense of cohesiveness within the family (Vuitton, for example) and the corporation. Apologize for past wrongs, dude! and it wasn't even that long ago!

Maybe LV feels like if they apologize, they're admitting to a degree of "wrongness" that's more significant than it actually was. But yes, like the article said, they should be very worried about upsetting their Jewish clients.
 
#9
It doesn't change my opinion of LV either. I don't honestly think these kinds of revelations of a company's past have any bearing on the company as it currently stands. After all, Volkswagon had well-documented ties to Nazi Germany, and people still buy VW cars. I think it's unfortunate that this happened, but it doesn't have anything to do with what LV represents now in my opinion.
 
#11
I think that everyone has to pick and choose thier battles. As a native American, I could protest pretty much all designer.materialism, but I choose to only protest 2:
hermes for the blatant racism and von dutch, for the same trashy reason.

but like I said, we each choose our battles for very personal reasons and go about our day...
 
#13
In France, there is an over-sensitivity about WWII and the Jewish genocide because there is a great deal of national guilt, so purported collaborators are still being actively outed and fingered.
It was a great tragedy and many people contributed (large and small) to it, I think it needs to be put into perspective that while under the Vichy regime, being a supporter of the regime was a requirement for continued existence (for companies) and relative safety (for individuals). It's much like the issue of people who were in the Hitler Youths as children (the "organisation" for kids and teens of the nazis). It was compulsory, so many "members" had no other choice.

Also, it says "members of the Vuitton family". Let's not forget that other famous families had members who supported the Nazi (actively or passively). It's not an isolated case.

I'm not excusing their involvement, just trying to give elements of perspective, regarding that period. It's pretty lousy that they supported the Vichy regime.

monablu said:
hermes for the blatant racism and von dutch, for the same trashy reason.
Click to expand...

Why Hermes? (genuine question) I do understand the VD thing. I think it's rather amusing/sad/sign of lack of knowledge that people, particularly young girls wear that brand considering how Von Dutch himself behaved in general towards women.
 
#14
^^^ Substantial numbers of British aristocrats, and even members of the royal family, were great supporters of the Nazi regime in the beginning. You'll never look into the history of anything great (person, family, company etc) and not find skeletons.
 
#15
I'm not surprised. If you think of how most of the French behaved in WW II, and unfortunately can still behave, it's pretty much in keeping with a theme. It's how they are now though that makes me limit how much of my money goes directly to France. I may buy LV, but I get it here, and I try to find the U.S., Spanish..etc. pieces instead of the French.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Back