Fashion press

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Fashion Executive: Last year, our company had $5 million in revenue, and was featured in 8 major articles in the fashion press. This year, our company’s revenue has practically quadrupled, so we should expect to be featured in at least 20 major articles in the fashion press.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the fashion executive’s reasoning in the above argument?

A. A competing fashion line was featured more often in the fashion press after its revenues increased.
B. Five years ago, the company’s revenue was less than $1 million, and the company was not featured in any major articles in
the fashion press.
C. The company’s revenue nearly quadrupled because of the introduction of a fashion line geared for sale in the European
fashion capital of Milan; however, most of the fashion press is headquartered domestically in New York.
D. A major automaker in the region was the subject of twice as many features in auto industry press when the automaker filed
for bankruptcy.
E. The company’s revenue increased dramatically because of the introduction of lower-priced lines sold in nationwide discount
chains, greatly reducing the brand’s cachet among fashion journalists.

I will provide the official answer later.

The underlying assumption here is that major articles are directly correlated to revenues. We have no reason to believe that the industry actually works that way, so there are many possible ways to weaken the argument. There are many new ideas that, if true, would break the feeble connection between the premise and the conclusion in this argument. Here are a few that would work:

1) Major articles are typically written about brands that fashion journalists find new and exciting, and sales volume has little influence in such matters.
2) Only revenue from new designs influences what brands get written about, and most of the company's revenue this year is from old designs.
3) Fashion companies with revenue of more than $10 million a year are seen as "too corporate" by fashion journalists, and are not often featured in major articles.
4) No company is featured in more than one major article per month.


I'm sure you can think of plenty more along these lines. So what about C? That seems tempting. If all the journalism action is in New York, maybe efforts in Milan will not get much attention. But we have to be careful here. The choice just says that the fashion press is mostly *headquartered* in New York. That tells us nothing about what coverage they provide in Milan. Besides, a few journalists in Milan might be able to produce 20 major articles on their own! We just don’t have enough information.

E, on the other hand, provides some new information. The company’s new lines are not of great interest to fashion journalists. Therefore they may not be featured in many articles, and we certainly have no reason to believe that they will be featured four times as often as last year. E weakens the argument.

+E

E must be the answer !!