i think i get what you are stating…sure there is some artificialness to some of the context and experience around some products but there are pertinent distinctions that differentiate pricepoints even in fashion (tho as yo pointed out, the actual size of the difference in relation to the price/value can be very much up for debate)…and as this was a farce in which the intention was to deceive, i think that is definitionally obfuscation…they could have maybe arrived at a similar conclusion without this circumstance…whatever anyone thinks about the quality of such brands like hermes & the like, to my albeit limited understanding, they aren’t faking their thing or fooling their consumers inauthentically…
and while it may be ‘that in many cases the quality of the engineering/design/materials plays a subordinate role and is mostly a supporting character to underline a certain brand image’ that doesn’t invalidate that some companies spend more on those things than others (often resulting in a higher cost product) nor does it necessarily mean that those things are just to play up on said brand image
not sure if that is what payless shows with this, they did manage to fool some people in a controlled environment tho…again to yo’s takeaway of understanding what actually matters to the end consumer rather than injecting our own ideas of value into product; the ephemerality/lasting of the product is ultimately somewhat out of our control. it already was the case that anyone could be an ‘influencer,’ only now individuals have more capacity to reach/be seen by others