A couple of years ago I bought a mug for my daughter. It was Royal Dalton. You cant get any more British. UK made, right ? Nope, made in India !! I was fizzing. It never occured to me that it would be made in any other country than the UK. I got stung again ( silly me ) when I bought a personalised mug from another famous maker. The mug came, made in China !! So twice bitten now, whos the mug? LOL. I double check more thoroughly now.
Quite. It is an absolute con, and I do my best to avoid buying products from companies that have done this. Take Burberry for example. They make a great deal of their "Britishness", yet closed down their factory in South Wales in 2007 to manufacture cheaply overseas. They didn't cut the prices of their garments, so what they were punting out as a Great British brand, was merely flogging cheaply made stuff from elsewhere under false pretences. After all, the reason an Hermès handbag costs as much as a small car, is that it is genuinely handmade by overpaid, mollycoddled artisans in France. The moment you start to produce them in the Far East, the whole justification for the price point disappears.
I am pleased to note that Burberry have now backtracked on this policy, and are bringing some manufacturing back to Yorkshire. I would like to think that customer feedback has led them to this move, but who knows ?
