Chanel faced major backlash in 2021 over its $825 Advent calendar

Tiffany & Co. released a $200K Advent calendar in 2021

Tiffany & Co. has released ultra-luxury Advent calendars containing more than $100K worth of jewelry, including gold bracelets, diamond earrings, and platinum pendants. The 2021 edition cost $200K and featured daily drawers of high-end pieces.

Hear how Advent calendars have become a pricy branding tool

Advent calendars have shifted into a high-margin branding vehicle, with retailers prioritizing elaborate design and reusable packaging. This episode questions whether premium calendars—despite their rising prices, environmental concerns, and flashy marketing—actually deliver products worth the cost.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume

The video ad, starring actress Nicole Kidman, aired in 2004 and cost roughly $33M at the time (when accounting for inflation, that would be roughly $57M in 2026). You can watch the ad spot in full here.

There's a debate over whether or not Hermes Birkin bags are good investments

Hermes often requires would-be buyers of its luxury Birkin purses (which can cost as little as $10K or more than $100K, depending on the bag) to have a relationship with a sales associate before getting off the company’s Birkin “wish list” and being granted the opportunity to purchase one.

One of LVMH's key business innovations was widening the luxury market's target audience

While certain items under the LVMH umbrella can cost thousands of dollars, like large Louis Vuitton bags, others, like coin purses or lipstick, cost significantly less. Some argue that these comparatively lower-priced items allows LVMH's target audience to be much larger in size than it would have been if it only targeted the world's wealthiest shoppers, whereas others argue that it makes the brand more vulnerable to economic downturns.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Macy’s revolutionized retail with fixed pricing, pay-upfront policies, and marketing

The brand soon grew into a cultural icon, hosting the first in-store Santa in 1862, and launching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, now a holiday staple. Its flagship Herald Square store became the world’s largest, and its festive window displays set a new standard for holiday celebrations.

Many of the 2010s girlboss-era founders experienced a public fall from grace in 2020

In the 2010s, dozens of female founders were celebrated on the covers of business magazines like Inc. for their recent startup success, from Emily Weiss’s Glossier makeup brand to Steph Korey’s Away luggage company. But many of these companies were also the subject of large takedown articles around the year 2020.

One New Yorker saved $1,600 during her 'no-buy January'

A social trend in recent years encourages participants to buy essentials only for the month (an abbreviation of the even more radical no-buy year). Hannah Marder gave the fast a go, fastidiously dividing her purchases into wants and needs and managing to save roughly $1,600 over the month.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

The Beanie Baby craze is known as one of the wildest collectible bubbles in history

The Beanie Baby boom saw collectors drive prices for stuffed animals into the hundreds or thousands of dollars, fueled by hype surrounding scarcity and online bidding wars. When demand collapsed in the early 2000s, the market crashed—leaving steep losses for many speculators.

Salvador Dalí and Coco Chanel bonded over art and fashion

In the late 1930s, Chanel hosted the eccentric artist to like and work in her home. Despite their differing styles, the two icons collaborated, and Chanel even inspired Dalí to mimic her perfume in his artwork.

Girl Scout cookies are so successful because buying them feels like giving to charity

The program generates $800M a year not because the cookies are exceptional, but because the salesforce makes refusal feel like a moral failure.

Canada Goose jackets can cost upward of $1K

Canada Goose winter jackets have become status symbols of sorts in chilly cities all over the United States. But the brand wasn’t always considered luxury. Originally, Canada Goose was a little-known manufacturer of utilitarian outerwear. This video shows how the retailer went from selling coats for the working class to selling coats to the 1%.

What happened at Fyre Festival?

Top supermodels and influencers, including Bella Hadid, promoted Fyre Festival—which was supposed to be a luxury music festival on a secluded island—on their social media feeds. But when the people who had shelled out thousands to attend arrived, they found something closer to a horror movie turned survival situation.

The controversial 'Peloton Wife' ad from 2019 cost the company more than $1B in market value

The 2019 ad of a man gifting his wife a Peloton exercise bike sparked a wave of controversy, with some calling the ad sexist and fatphobic. The ad's backlash decreased the company's market value by $1.6B.

Some found the Temu ‘Shop Like a Billionaire’ Super Bowl ads out of place in the Big Game

“It had no A-list celebrities or beloved cultural touchstones; not a single heartstring was tugged,” wrote one writer of the Temu ad that aired five times during the 2024 Super Bowl.

Critics choose the 2025 ‘Worst in Show’ awards for CES products

Under the motto “Not all innovation is good innovation,” The Repair Association has selected products at CES that are the least private, sustainable, or repairable for consumers—as well as the “Who asked for this?” award. For example, the least repairable award went to the $2,200 Ultrahuman Rare Luxury Smart ring, which can only be charged 500 times—and replacing the battery effectively destroys it.

A brief history of Cannes controversies

Cannes is one of the most prestigious festivals in the world, but that hasn’t shielded it from controversies, including inflammatory statements, political protests, and booing audiences.

A viral photo of a dress sparked a fierce online debate over its colors

A post showing a dress sparked a heated social media divide, with some insisting it was white and gold and others insisting it was blue and black. The debate quickly spread to celebrities and brought in scientists to explain the optical illusion.

The film ‘Coco’ sparked global interest in the Day of the Dead

The holiday figures prominently in the 2017 Disney film, which inspired an uptick in Day of the Dead merchandise being carried by national chains like Target and Michaels, sold alongside Halloween merchandise.

Making sense of the complex logistics of product returns

Americans returned over $800B worth of stuff in 2022, more than the entire gross domestic product of some nations. This entertaining, in-depth video dives into the complex logistics of the reverse supply chain and how it works. Estimates peg the...

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on its future

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew dives into how the trendsetting video app and cultural phenomenon works, from what distinguishes its algorithm and drives viral videos, to the challenges of content moderation and digital addiction in this wide-ranging conversation with the head of TED, Chris Anderson.

25 million pounds of beads are distributed every Mardi Gras, leading to environmental concerns

The necklaces—which are mostly made from cheap, often toxic, plastic—are believed to be harmful to New Orleans and its residents. Dr. Howard Mielke, an environmental scientist at Tulane University, found that the majority of lead in the city's soil can be found along Mardi Gras parade routes.

Janet Jackson's 2004 halftime show sparked a broadcast backlash

During Super Bowl XXXVIII, Justin Timberlake tore part of Janet Jackson's costume during the halftime finale, exposing her breast. The moment triggered widespread controversy, negative career repercussions for Jackson, FCC fines, and stricter standards for live television broadcasts.

Nike’s labor practices became controversial in the 1990s—leading to widespread protests of the brand

In the 1990s, Nike came under fire for its use of factories with unsafe working conditions and child labour to produce its products. While Nike didn’t own the manufacturing sites, many people felt Nike was ultimately responsible for using sweatshops in countries like Vietnam and Thailand.

Singles' Day was created as a response to Valentine's Day

Inspired by people feeling left out by Valentine's Day, the Chinese holiday celebrates the unattached. It takes place Nov. 11, sometimes referred to as "Double 11," and has become a major shopping day, with over $202B spent on that day in 2024.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Fear or disgust related to clusters of holes and cracks, called trypophobia, may stem from evolutionary processes to help us avoid pathogens.

Poison ivy can cause rashes year-round since all parts of the plant contain urushiol, the oil that triggers our allergic response.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.