This Louis Vuitton ad features shoes which cost about 600 euros (US$700) in the shops. I don’t know how much Louis Vuitton pays for them, and I don’t know how much they will be paying Tony Blair to help sell them but I’d be surprised if the unit cost to the company is what: 60 euros? half that?
The numbers may be confidential, but it’s no longer a secret that Louis Vuitton products are not hand-made by horny-handed French craftsmen. On the contrary: the labour-intensive aspects of Louis Vuitton shoe production take place in India.
But final assembly and finishing happen in Italy – so the louche young man in the ad could well be genuine.
Second menu
Territorial development books
It has always been a point of pride at Doors of Perception events to curate the bookstore as carefully as we curate the speakers. We do this because when a conference theme cuts across disciplines – as ours do – no single bookseller is likely to know which are the best supporting titles on sustainability *and* design *and* culture *and* business; we select them collaboratively.
So it was a special insider’s pleasure to encounter a display of books at La 27e Region’s event in Marseille (see story above) on all aspects of territorial development.
The word territorial has no direct English equivalent: in French (and also in Italian) it describes a synthesis of the soil, the land, the earth, biodiversity, culture, law, philosophy and sustainable development. Among my scores were a book on Citizen participation and public action: cases from Dakar, Rabat, Cotonou, jerusalem and Sanaa. and another called “The Intelligence of the Other”. by Michel Sauquet which proposes an “ecology of different kinds of knowledge”; this, in English, would probably be called something less enchanting like ‘intercultural awareness’. I’m putting the online bookseller links here because I could not find any other references that show the books.
If you’re minded to buy these, please go to (I’m roughly translating again) the Territorial Development Bookshop.
If you’re thinking – “what use is this to me, it’s all in French!” – then I agree with you and apologise. But I also have a question: does anyone know who we might approach for funding to pay for an editorial service that would make French books, events, people and projects available to an English readership? We can make a start with one editorial post.