Louis Vuitton selling fake bags and Meghan Markle's make-up

All the news that's fit to mint

All the news that's fit to mint

Happening in (The) Oz today: 

• 🥶Winter is here 
• ❄️So is the “Polar Blast” 
• ⚡Energy boss tells 80,000 customers to rack off 
• ⛽Get used to $2 petrol 
• 🥬And $5 lettuce  
• ♻️South Australia declares a climate emergency 
• 💄Meghan Markle’s make-up artist lands in London 
• 👜Louis Vuitton accused of faking it

Welcome to winter. 

Allow Monica to set our scene today.

Winter is Monica and we are Rachel.

And we may actually have to start sticky taping our credit cards back together because the real world is about to get expensive. Like David Jones homewares expensive. As unattainable as perfectly ripened Harris Farm organic Shepard avocados.

While we await this "polar blast" to settle over south eastern Australia, bringing more icy winds and maximums barely cracking the double digits in places like Melbourne and Canberra - some new "cost of living" news out today is sure to raise your basal body temperature. (I'm literally sitting in my underwear with the air conditioner blasting, that's how sweaty it's making me).

"Winter is coming"

Prepare for some Game of Thrones antics. While hyperbole is part and parcel of our desensitised world, when business leaders start using the term "apocalyptic" to describe petrol and food prices, it's best to tune in. 

It's all kicked off now because Europe - well the European Union more specifically - are cutting off funding "to stop Russia's war machine". 

Tonight #EUCO agreed a sixth package of sanctions.

It will allow a ban on oil imports from #Russia.

The sanctions will immediately impact 75% of Russian oil imports. And by the end of the year, 90% of the Russian oil imported in Europe will be banned. pic.twitter.com/uVoVI519v8

— Charles Michel (@eucopresident) May 30, 2022

Since the announcement Europe will stop importing Russia's oil, business leaders here are warning the flow on effect of them putting a kink in Putin's hose will see petrol prices stay at about $2 per litre or more. 

The rise in energy costs, coupled with a predicted 10% hike in food prices, threatens to deepen the cost of living pressures we're already dealing with and extend a surge in inflation. Something that reached a 20-year high of 5.1% in March when we realised iceberg lettuce was costing us $5.

Out like a light

If you're a customer of ReAmped Energy, of which about 80,000 of us are, you may be getting a message from its boss soon telling you to take your business elsewhere and try to find a new electricity provider. 

Luke Blincoe said its situation is "dire" as the company is preparing to double its power bills in response to soaring power prices.

"It guts us to say to customers 'the best thing for you to do is leave', but they've got to shop around while there are still a few good deals around," Blincoe said.

Responding to all of... this on Tuesday night, prime minister Anthony Albanese said his briefings with Treasury and finance included issues of cost of living.

"We will give proper consideration with proper advice to any policy moves that are made,," Albo said, “but we’ve been very conscious about the issue of cost of living."

South Australia is living for the drama

South Australia, fresh from its Covid-induced state of emergency, has declared a new one - a climate emergency.

The  Malinauskas government, via climate Minister Susan Close, introduced a climate emergency motion, which passed both houses late Tuesday night, which, as Close said, "reaffirms the urgent need to decarbonise the South Australian economy and shift to renewable sources of energy."

Last year she tabled a 10,000 signature petition in the parliament from South Australians demanding immediate action on climate change.

"Labor sees the climate crisis as a jobs opportunity, especially in the regions where many renewable projects are located. Our world leading hydrogen jobs plan will help to power green manufacturing in South Australia, creating jobs and providing clean energy," Close said.

"After years of Liberal inaction on climate change, it’s time to act and that starts with acknowledging the seriousness of the climate crisis."

The new Liberal opposition there was like "cool, we hear you" but made the point that the new government should probably not cut funding from the water and environment departments when it hands down its first Budget on Thursday.

"I don't think there's any fat in the environment budget. My message to Labor is, please protect this key part of public administration from these cuts because without quarantining the environment department from cuts all this talk about a climate emergency is just gesture and virtue signalling," SA opposition leader David Speirs said.

Meanwhile, further north and Pacific leaders walked away from a proposed security deal with China, instead they called for Beijing to do more about climate change.

Reverse Megxit

We're just days away from the Queen celebrating 70-years on the job and witnessing Harry and Meghan returning to the jobs they quit after less than a year. 

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, together with their kids Archie and Lilibet, are heading back to the UK to take part in the weekend long festivities marking the reign of the longest serving Monarch.

I wonder if they also have to wait in those long customs lines at Heathrow now too?

As non-working royals now they will be excluded from any formal proceedings and banned, along with Prince Andrew, from appearing on the balcony of Buckingham Palace afterwards with the likes of Wills and Kate.

Details of just what the couple will get up to are sparse. But we do know make-up artist Daniel Martin, the guy who did the Duchess' face for her wedding, has already arrived in London, joining her UK hairdresser George Northwood. 

"The fact that they’re coming at all is something of a miracle, given that it’s little more than a year since Meghan told Oprah her life in England made her suicidal and only a matter of months since Harry was suing the British government over his security arrangements," The Times reported.

"The Duchess of Sussex had all the flowers of the Commonwealth countries embroidered onto her wedding veil in a nod to her proposed work with the association. Whether she makes an appearance at a jubilee lunch or the afternoon’s pageant around the streets of London or turns up to listen to Ed Sheeran singing the national anthem at the culmination of proceedings has yet to be confirmed."

How to spot a fake 

Louis Vuitton is the world's most ripped off and most counterfeited brand.

You can't walk down a street in Bali without being whacked in the face by a monogrammed Speedy, but you’d think you’d be safe dropping thousands of your hard earned cash at an official LV store, right?

Not quite.

The French luxury brand is facing allegations that one of its boutiques in China had sold a fake bag to a customer.

Fashion journal WWD reported that earlier this year, LV was ordered by a local court in Changsha to compensate a customer who bought what they thought was a genuine $3,500 Vaugirard handbag, but after taking it to a third party authenticator, discovered the bag was a fake.

The news comes as the brand's former creative director, the late Virgil Abloh, was being honoured by his other brand - Off White. 

On the first day of Paris fashion week, the Milan based luxury brand presented the last contributions from its founder, Abloh, who died from cancer last year. 

Serena Williams walked in the show called, "Imaginary Experience".