Most of us will have grown up listening to popular fairytales, a large part of which were adapted by Disney and turned into worlds of magic and wonder. As children we do not question what we are being told as we take everything at face value. It is only when we start growing up that our quest to seek the truth behind the things we are told begins. 

It is only natural that at a certain age we stop believing in fairytales. However, when realising how often crude the adult world is, a lot of us choose to believe in more romanticised versions; as delusional as we may be at times, it is that little magic, even if it is just in thought, that brightens our lives. That being said, an inherent need for magic can also be used against us, and before we know it, we have been tricked. 

Ever since the beginnings of trade followed quite immediately by the notion of competition, selling an item no longer involved just letting it lay idly on your shop display waiting for it to be picked up by a customer; competition forced merchants to actually 'sell' their items through the magic of persuasion, marking the fundaments on which the advertising industry is built.

As controversial as the advertising industry may be, it is an essential wheel driving our economy. Good advertising is said to be a logical thought expressed emotionally, connecting with potential customers and ultimately driving them to buy a product or service; in a way it is a form of enchantment, another form of magic, that we choose to accept. 

Out of all brands out there, luxury brands have become skilled sorcerers when it comes to this kind of magic; having understood the needs of the prestige obsessed consumer, luxury retailers have found a way to dominate status bedevilled consumers by telling them fairytales of craftsmanship and design. And these campaigns do not come at a low price; one brand alone can spend up to £4bn on advertising in one year, allowing them to subsequently charge ridiculous retail prices on poorly made products. 

So in the end, the excessive mark up does actually make sense to a certain extent, but it poses a whole new question in return: as a consumer, do you want to be paying for the advert or the product? 

We all stop believing in fairytales when we are confronted with the truth, which is that they do not exist. In this case however, it is not realising that they are not real, it is more like discovering that our favourite Disney fairytales are based on dark truths, which suitably, they are.