TikTok has officially entered its Marxist phase. According to the latest viral hysteria, your precious French luxury bag was probably born in a Guangdong factory and cost less than your phone bill to make. Leading this digital uprising? Tanner Leatherstein, a soft-spoken leatherworker with a scalpel in one hand and receipts in the other.

Except Tanner never actually said any of that. He’s been calmly correcting the record while TikTok spins its tale of corporate betrayal and $600 Birkins. In luxury gossip, nuance is the first thing out the window.

The claim that 80 percent of French luxury bags are made in China may sound spicy, but it’s about as accurate as calling Crocs couture. We’re witnessing the collision between a bored audience, a misunderstood craftsman, and a trillion-dollar industry allergic to transparency.

Tanner uses his platform to clarify what he actually said and dispel misinformation about luxury production.

The Theatre of Luxury (and Its Performers)

Luxury fashion has always been part opera and part puppet show, with each player knowing their role. The TikTok truth-tellers position themselves as stylish revolutionaries, bravely exposing the $500 Birkin conspiracy, while the heritage brands act as the high priests, staging their workshops like leather-clad cathedrals. Even Tanner, somewhat reluctantly, finds himself as the straight man in this prestige comedy.

Even the mighty HERMÈS plays its part. Beneath the mystique of artisan ateliers lies a production system reminiscent of TOYOTA’s, albeit with fewer robots and more scarves. LOUIS VUITTON practically built its empire on this model, blending human craftsmanship with mechanical precision and branding it as modern luxury.

These legacy brands treat their sample ateliers like sacred spaces dedicated to leather. And somewhere in the mix is Tanner, patiently explaining the basics of economics and ethics.

The “Made in France” label? It’s genuine, but like much in fashion, it’s strategically flexible. (Just ask anyone familiar with the “final assembly” loophole.)

So yes, the TikTok person claiming that his Chinese workshop produces authentic Birkins for $1,400 is clearly mistaken. But HERMÈS is also misleading when they suggest that each $38,000 handbag is personally crafted by a Parisian artisan using a bone folder.

The “Made in France” label remains technically accurate due to generous interpretations of assembly laws. It’s the passport stamp of fashion—a little wink that allows brands to charge five figures for a bag and still sleep at night.

In short, the man in China claiming to make genuine Birkins for $1,400 is not exposing a scandal. However, the notion that each $38,000 HERMÈS bag is lovingly created is personally whispered into shape by a Parisian monk with a bone folder. That might be the larger fiction.

The Real Barrier: The Luxury Industrial Complex

This issue isn’t solely about China or counterfeit products; it’s fundamentally about control.

Today’s luxury market operates within a closed circuit of influence. From runway coverage to retail leases and the front rows of VOGUE-sanctioned events, conglomerates like LVMH, KERING, and RICHEMONT shape the narrative. If luxury is a religion, these companies serve as its clergy and publishers.

What Tanner is saying—when he dares to ask why a bag costs more than a semester at Yale—is that the price reflects not the item but the fantasy. And fantasies, as it turns out, are expensive to maintain.

Independent voices rarely break through this narrative firewall. When they do, they’re usually absorbed, watered down, or stamped with a logo and sold back to you at triple the price. Just ask HELMUT LANG. Actually, don’t. He’s somewhere inside PRADA’s archive being repurposed for future capsule drops.

Not your knockoff cousin’s workshop.

Don’t Believe in the $500 Birkin.

If you think you’ve discovered the hidden gateway to authentic HERMÈS at wholesale prices, let me save you a customs headache. You’ll find a very convincing dupe, a slick man trying to sell you a story. It just won’t be the one you thought you were buying.

Luxury, at its core, is a performance. It relies on agreed-upon delusions. It’s couture cosplay with a price tag. The craftsmanship may be authentic, but the aura is curated with the precision of a Renaissance painting.

Tanner’s transparency is refreshing. But clarity doesn’t sell handbags. Fantasy does.

What the Illusion Really Costs

Tanner’s crusade for honesty is admirable. But Truth is a tough sell in a market built on suggestion. We don’t buy handbags. We buy hierarchy. The logo on the clasp is less about construction and more about confirmation.

Next time someone promises you a secret stash of $500 Birkins in a Shanghai backroom or a holy grail of artisans chanting over fromage de chèvre in Paris, consider this. The real product isn’t the bag. It’s the story. And that story has a retail markup of several thousand percent.

Closing Text

The luxury machine doesn’t need to lie outright. It just needs to suggest. To imply. To gesture toward rarity with just enough ambiguity to keep the rest of us guessing.

If you want a better system, you’ll have to redefine what luxury means. Because right now, it means buying into a wonderful, very expensive bedtime story.