Price Upon Request

If you read enough fashion magazines, you'll surely come across pieces marked "Price Upon Request" on the same page as items happily informing you they are $250,000. I always assumed that meant the cost was so astronomical that you would go blind just seeing it. Apparently this is not always the case, as the NY Times investigated.

In fact, more than half the time the item in question just never went into production! "Two editors at different fashion publications, who would not speak publicly because they did not want to embarrass their employers, said “price upon request” was usually a misnomer. It has become a euphemism used to credit designs that were never produced for sale. It is appearing more commonly, they said, for a clear reason: less and less runway fashion is actually being produced."Lies, all lies! Though supposedly "'We say ‘price upon request’ when an item isn’t produced because the designer will make the item at cost, if they decide to, depending on interest.'"...which ultimately still means REALLY RIDICULOUSLY INSANELY expensive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/fashion/06PRICE.html?_r=3&ref=fashion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin