Marketing is driving culture as promotional campaigns overshadow the offerings they seek to elevate — in fashion, music, art and film. With fashion weeks taking place around the world and awards season well underway, the hype machine is operating at full throttle. Fashion houses seemingly no longer hire creative directors for their design skills or aesthetic vision but for their marketing prowess. For Louis Vuitton, however, the show was an unqualified success: The star-studded spectacle attracted over a billion online views. But now the hype often precedes and overwhelms the product, to the point that the product seems almost irrelevant to its own success.

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Persons: ” Sidney Toledano, Dior, Pharrell Williams, Williams, Louis Vuitton, Cathy Horyn, it’s, “, ”, Pietro Beccari, ” “ Barbie, Barbiemania, Josh Goldstine Organizations: Warner Bros