Study 148: The Subcontracted Sublime: What Italy's Luxury Labor Probe Exposes

Milan prosecutors have widened an investigation into labor exploitation in the subcontracted supply chains of luxury houses including Chanel, Goyard, Brunello Cucinelli, and Bulgari. The brands are not themselves charged; the exploitation sits one or two tiers below them, among suppliers employing undocumented, underpaid workers. The OAC reads the probe as an audit of the luxury model itself: a transfer of Semantic Burden in which the meaning of the artisan's hand is banked at the top of the chain while the hand is worked out of sight at the bottom, hollowing the object by severing its adverti