Scroll through Instagram on any given morning and the world of luxury fashion feels almost intimate. A model in a Chanel tweed jacket at a Paris café. A front-row guest at Dior filming the finale on her phone. Fashion, it seems, has never been more open. And yet, try to buy a Birkin. Try to get an invitation to a runway show. That is the velvet rope paradox: a world that has mastered the art of appearing close to its consumers while carefully, methodically keeping them at a d