Luxury fashion is centered around experience - whether it’s in-person shopping, fashion shows, or personalized fittings. All of these rely on a sense of normalcy and stability, which becomes harder to maintain during times of conflict.

During the COVID pandemic, we saw an e-commerce boom across many industries. However, that growth was mostly in essentials and standardized items. Fashion is different. It depends heavily on fit, texture, and how a piece looks on the individual. While basics like t-shirts and socks can be easily purchased online, more detailed or structured pieces are harder to buy without trying them on. Some retailers, especially fast fashion brands or mid-market department stores like Macy’s, allow customers to order online, try items at home, and return them if needed. Luxury fashion, however, does not operate the same way - especially when it comes to customized garments or elaborate pieces seen on the runway, which often require multiple fittings.

Cities such as Dubai and Doha have become major hubs for luxury brands, attracting high-end clientele from around the world. However, travel advisories and regional tensions have discouraged people from visiting these destinations. This has also had a broader effect, reducing travel even to places not directly affected by conflict, such as parts of Europe and Asia.

Luxury fashion also relies heavily on atmosphere. Stores are designed to feel calm and peaceful, with soft lighting, quiet music, and carefully controlled environments that create a sense of intimacy and exclusivity. But during times of conflict, it becomes harder to maintain that feeling. News alerts, heightened security, and general uncertainty can shift the mood, making it difficult to fully separate the shopping experience from what is happening in the outside world.

Additionally, during periods of crisis, fashion itself tends to change. Luxury becomes less elaborate and more understated, as people may avoid wearing flashy or extravagant pieces. In such moments, dressing more simply can feel more appropriate, as bold displays of wealth may seem out of place given the surrounding circumstances.

Luxury does not disappear in times of conflict - but it becomes quieter, more controlled, and less visible.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/27/iran-war-wipes-out-100-billion-from-luxury-stocks.html

These events are showing that fear has a huge impact on consumer behavior and purchasing decisions, especially when it may involve passenger safety and comfort. Traveling for pleasure is usually associated with relaxation and a break from the stressful realities of life back home.

But what happens when that sense of ease is replaced with uncertainty?

Would people consider traveling if they are scared of being stranded or targeted overseas due to the conflict in the Middle East, or if they fear being detained or scrutinized at the airport before they even reach their destination?

The conflict in the Middle East has left many passengers stranded and some companies reconsidering upcoming work trips to the region, only considering essential travel and opting for fully remote conferences or meetings when needed, as well as leading to longer lines for people traveling from or to high-risk regions.

Additionally, having ICE agents at airports may deter the airlines’ main target market from traveling in the first place -tourists, immigrants, and offshore teams traveling to the United States for business- especially since they will be wearing visibly identifying uniforms rather than TSA uniforms.

Although the ICE agents are only supposed to take over duties such as guarding entrances, even the fear that ICE agents are present at airports may cause some passengers to reconsider traveling, postponing their flight or cancelling altogether.

Their presence can also cause fear and discomfort at airports, especially in light of recent controversial incidents in the United States involving immigration agents that have sparked public concern.

Given these recent events affecting the travel industry, airlines, businesses, and travel agencies may need to take additional steps to restore confidence.

Airlines can provide clearer communication about what passengers should expect at airports and offer real-time updates about delays, wait times, and procedures. They can also encourage passengers to arrive earlier and provide more flexible booking options, including easier rebooking and cancellations, to reduce the fear of being stranded or losing money.

Airlines have also been rerouting flights to avoid active conflict zones. While this may lead to longer flight times, it helps ensure passenger safety. In some cases, airlines have worked with passengers who are stranded in conflict-affected areas, helping transport them back home or to safer locations. Encouraging travelers to stay connected with their local embassies can also provide an additional layer of support.

Businesses can support employees by limiting non-essential travel, allowing flexibility to opt out of trips, and ensuring travelers are well-prepared with proper documentation and guidance. Travel agencies may also play an important role by advising clients on potential risks, recommending alternative routes, and helping them navigate changing travel conditions.

Conclusion

In times like these, it is not just actual risk but perceived risk that shapes decisions.

And in industries like travel, that perception can quietly influence where people go, how businesses operate, and whether planes take off full or half empty.

In low-income neighborhoods, this isn’t a minor inconvenience. It becomes a community-wide problem. Stores respond by locking items behind glass, reducing staff, or shutting down entirely. Residents are left with fewer jobs, fewer options, and diminished access to basic necessities — the very items required for health, dignity, and daily life.

This is not just a retail issue. It’s a systems issue.

Access to Essentials Is Disappearing

What happens when someone in a low-income neighborhood needs a tube of toothpaste or pain reliever — but must wait ten or fifteen minutes for an employee to unlock a case, assuming one is available at all?

Ironically, these same neighborhoods are often more prone to theft, including organized shoplifting where goods are resold online or on the street. As theft increases, access declines. Over time, this contributes to neighborhood deterioration: fewer open stores, fewer jobs, and fewer economic opportunities for people already living with limited options.

The loss compounds itself.

The Gap Between Privileged and Vulnerable Shoppers

For middle- and high-income shoppers, inconvenience has an easy workaround. If no employee is available or the item is locked, we can go home and order it from Amazon.

Many people living in poverty don’t have that option.

They may lack reliable internet access, be unable to afford higher online prices, or fail to meet minimum purchase thresholds required for free shipping. Time is another constraint — waiting in a store for assistance may not be feasible when juggling multiple jobs, caregiving responsibilities, or unreliable transportation.

What feels like a minor annoyance to some becomes a real barrier for others.

Retail Theft Creates Deserts, Not Just Losses

In some cities, retail theft has reached a point where drugstores and convenience stores have closed entirely because they can no longer operate profitably. When that happens, communities don’t just lose retail access — they lose pharmacies, food options, and employment.

These closures create retail deserts, particularly in already vulnerable neighborhoods. People must travel farther for essentials like medication and personal care items, increasing both financial and logistical strain.

What begins as loss prevention becomes a public health and equity issue.

An Operational Solution: Stores Within Stores

Not long ago, I encountered an approach that reframed the problem.

My local grocery store — in an affluent area — created a blocked-off section with its own cashier for personal care items. Similar to how electronics or jewelry are handled in big-box stores, hygiene products were placed in a dedicated, staffed area.

This “store within a store” model struck me as a pragmatic solution. It reduces theft, improves customer service, and keeps essential goods accessible — without shutting down access entirely.

If implemented thoughtfully, especially in high-theft areas, this approach could allow stores to remain profitable while ensuring communities still have reliable access to necessities.

When Policy Meets Unintended Consequences

In states like California, theft under $950 is generally charged as a misdemeanor — a policy originally intended to reduce incarceration and address inequities in the justice system.

However, policies don’t operate in isolation. In practice, reduced enforcement combined with rising theft has placed pressure on retailers and shifted the burden onto customers. Items are locked away, stores close, and access disappears.

Meanwhile, customers who are already struggling may be unable to purchase essentials online due to shipping minimums or cost barriers. The result is a system where inconvenience — and harm — is distributed unevenly.

From Shortages to Systems Thinking

When access to necessities disappears, a cycle can form. Some people may feel pushed toward theft to meet basic needs, which further harms stores and accelerates closures. Communities are left with fewer services, fewer jobs, and greater instability.

Retail theft is not only a business problem. It is a community, equity, and public health issue — one shaped by policy, economic pressure, and operational decisions.

Solutions like the “store within a store” model demonstrate what systems thinking can look like in practice. By rethinking operations rather than retreating from communities, businesses can reduce losses while preserving access to essential goods.

This is what it looks like when ethics, policy, and operations collide — not in headlines, but in the everyday act of buying toothpaste.

We have all heard the familiar line: “I came to America with ten dollars in my pocket.” Some people immigrate to the United States with the hope of accomplishing the American Dream. Others come here not because they want to, but because they have no choice.

My father was one of those people.

He came to the United States to study International Business, fully intending to return to Iran after obtaining his degree. His plan was simple: study abroad, then go home. But it did not work out that way. Only a year later, those plans were shattered.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 forced him to stay in the U.S. Returning was no longer possible—not safely, not realistically. So he remained in America and did whatever he had to do to survive.

Imagine leaving your home country to study abroad, only to discover that while you were gone, everything you knew had turned upside down. The place you grew up, the place you called home, no longer existed in the form you remembered.

Some people cross borders or oceans in pursuit of a better life. Others were never really looking for it in the first place. Instead, they find a better life pursuing them.

In Persian, there is a word for living away from your homeland: ghorbat. But ghorbat means more than simply immigrating to a new place. The word carries sadness and loneliness. It describes being separated from your country, from your family and friends, and from everything that once made you feel at home.

There is no true equivalent for ghorbat in English. I once tried to translate it and found that the closest word was exile. But exile is defined as being sent away from one’s homeland as punishment, often for political or social reasons. At first, that felt wrong. Living in ghorbat did not feel like punishment—it felt like loss.

Or was it?

For immigrants forced to flee their countries due to war, revolution, or political unrest, exile may not be such an imperfect word after all. Being involuntarily pushed out of your home can feel like punishment, even if no one explicitly sentences you to it.

For people like that, there was no “American Dream.” There never really was. How could there be, when they never dreamed of leaving in the first place?

Homesickness, like love, can be blind. It can make people do things they normally wouldn’t. It can make a family move back to their country with a baby in the midst of war. It can make a world-renowned singer abandon her career and live in solitude for decades.

But eventually, no amount of love for a homeland can outweigh the reality of what life would be like if you stayed. If your home is no longer the place you knew, then you are not really living there—you are living in memory. You are not building a life or making new memories. You are only holding onto the past.

In that case, the only cure for homesickness is learning to call a new place home.

This is not to say that all immigration happens under tragic circumstances. Some people leave their countries because of promising opportunities for work or education. They make a choice.

But the romantic, overdramatized Emily in Paris version of immigration is far less common than popular culture would have us believe. For every Emily who leaves a stable life behind for a job abroad, there are countless others who flee out of desperation.

If homesickness can make you do things you normally wouldn’t, so can fear, persecution, and survival.

Once, while listening to a call-in segment on the now-defunct Iranian news network Mano To, a listener said something that stayed with me. She said that nobody leaves their homeland from a place of happiness. Who wants to live in a foreign country, alone, away from everything they know?

She was speaking specifically about Iranian immigrants. But her words apply far beyond Iran.

They apply to migrants at the border, fleeing violence and poverty. To those smuggled in overcrowded trucks, risking their lives for the chance to escape. They apply to the people of Afghanistan who, after the Taliban takeover, clung to the wheels of airplanes in desperate attempts to leave.

None of them, I can assure you, left home in a state of happiness—or even clarity. All they knew was that they had to leave. And they would do whatever it took.

Before systems show up as policies, laws, or operations, they show up in lives — interrupted, redirected, and rebuilt.

As consumers, we generally expect that the products we buy were made with good intentions — for our safety, for the environment, and for the world.

When Business Practices Go Wrong

This is not always the case. Many companies use questionable or unethical business practices. These can include:

• Harming the environment

• Failing to properly test products

• Using child or forced labor

• Maintaining unsafe working conditions

These practices can harm both physical and mental health and have long-term effects on people and the planet.

Why Do Some Corporations Act Unethically?

This raises an important question: why do some corporations engage in unethical business practices? Is it due to a lack of oversight, ignorance, or simply greed?

The answer is complex. Some companies fail to properly audit their supply chains. Others continue outdated practices even as global conditions change. And then there are companies that knowingly engage in unethical behavior purely to increase profits.

Many ethical practices cost money — testing products, conducting research, purchasing higher-quality materials, paying living wages, and ensuring safe working environments. These costs apply not only to the final product, but to every component involved in its production. Sustainable practices, such as using recycled materials or reducing environmental impact, also increase operational costs.

Since a business’s primary goal is to make money, there is an inherent tension between maximizing profit and protecting human and environmental safety. At some point, companies must decide where to draw the line.

Corporate Social Responsibility Is the Business’s Responsibility

Consumers are largely disconnected from what happens behind the scenes. We don’t see factories or supply chains on the other side of the world. When shopping, we often buy not only what we need, but what we want. If a product is affordable and meets our needs, many consumers do not question why it is so cheap or where it comes from.

A clear example is fast-fashion companies such as Temu and Shein. I used to buy apparel and other merchandise from these platforms. Later, I learned that some of their low prices are linked to unethical labor practices, including reports of forced labor among marginalized communities in China. After learning this, my concern for human rights outweighed my desire for fast and affordable fashion.

However, not everyone makes the same choice. Many people see a three-dollar shirt and view it as the most affordable option. Convincing someone to pay fifty dollars for a t-shirt when a cheaper alternative exists is extremely difficult. It is similar to placing candy in front of children and expecting them not to eat it, even after explaining the health risks. Companies continue to sell these products because they reduce costs — often at a high price for people and the planet.

When Profit Comes at the Expense of Human Safety: The Nestlé Example

In some cases, profit-seeking comes at the direct expense of human safety and community wellbeing. Investigations and advocacy reporting have raised concerns about Nestlé’s water extraction practices in drought-stricken regions, including Pakistan. Critics have argued that while local communities struggled to access clean drinking water, Nestlé continued bottling and selling water — sometimes back to the same populations facing scarcity.

According to The Muslim Vibe (2018), Nestlé’s water practices in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Flint, Michigan were linked to reduced access to clean water for vulnerable communities, raising serious ethical questions about the privatization of essential resources and the responsibility corporations have toward public wellbeing. For those unable to afford bottled water, access to safe alternatives was often limited, leaving many exposed to unsafe conditions.

This example highlights the broader consequences of corporate decisions when profit is prioritized over basic human needs and environmental sustainability.
Source: The Muslim Vibe (2018), “Here’s how Nestlé is leaving millions in Pakistan, Nigeria and Flint without clean water.”

Beyond Products: The Nokia Example

Corporate social responsibility is not limited to physical products. In 2009, reports emerged that Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, sold telecommunications infrastructure to the Iranian government that included monitoring and interception capabilities. These systems were later reported to have been used to monitor communications during the post-election protests, contributing to the identification and targeting of activists.

While Nokia maintained that it was complying with local laws and standard business practices, the controversy sparked international criticism and consumer boycotts. The case highlighted the ethical responsibility companies carry when operating in politically sensitive environments, particularly when their technology can be repurposed in ways that cause harm.
Source: Wikipedia summary of investigative reporting on Nokia Siemens Networks and Iran (2009).

What Corporate Social Responsibility Really Means

Corporations have the knowledge and control over their products, services, and processes. Corporate social responsibility is not just about knowing right from wrong — it is about continuously adapting to changing conditions.

Businesses must stay aware of:

• New legislation

• Industry changes

• Current events around the world

Corporate social responsibility is multi-faceted and requires constant attention. It goes beyond selling a product or service. Companies must consider everyone involved in the supply chain and the broader effects of their operations on society and the environment. This responsibility applies at every stage — from sourcing and manufacturing to sales, distribution, merchandising, and marketing.

Key Takeaway

Corporate social responsibility is not optional.
It is the responsibility of businesses to ensure that their products, processes, and practices are ethical, safe, and sustainable — even when consumers may never see the full story.

Sources & Further Reading

• The Muslim Vibe (2018). Here’s how Nestlé is leaving millions in Pakistan, Nigeria and Flint without clean water.

• Wikipedia. Nokia – Nokia Siemens Networks and Iran controversy (2009).

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