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Counterfeited deluxe bags: Are they worth it?
Replicas and exact copies of branded bags are a crime. Before the law and before the principles of good conduct and style. Wearing them, an attack against your own image
"Urban legends have many stories on copies and replicas of the most desired bags: “They make them on the same Chinese factory as the originals,” “a friend of mine organises private sales with 70% discount”, “you can hardly see the difference in the counterfeited products"".
Lies, lies and lies. It is all false. The bags of the big names are manufactured in France, Italy or Spain, in countries where they know how to work with luxury leather products, which use only the best materials, follow a long process of many hours and hundreds of steps, and they are made by hand by highly qualified craftsmen.
When the neighbouring country introduced the law that limited to 35 hours the working week, waiting lists started. The ateliers could not keep up with the pace of orders and decided to serve on a per-order manner.
Suspicious offers
No bag without guarantee is authentic. The “private” sales (that is, clandestine) in show rooms and private homes are cons. They can never be taken back to the shop for repair, a service offered to its customers by the most important brands such as Hermès. The authentic bags come with a document from the manufacturer proving where it came from.
The ones you buy from street vendors are the worst. People who really know the model and the brand will point out just by looking 5 or 10 “differences”: the internal and external materials, the colour, the printing of the logos, the backstitching, the way in which the string is stitched to the inside of the strap, the metallic elements…
In the Birkin by Hermès, even the way in which the key leather straps fall counts. In the Paddington by Chloè, the artificial rigidity gives impostors away. No real good bag comes in a plastic bag or smells of crude oil. The cover is of soft flannel or velvet, never of crude cotton or felt.
More than noble options
But temptation is strong: Why pay 1,700 euros in the shop when the street replica is only 70? Well, because fashion is a way of expressing oneself and counterfeits give out an undesirable message: ”I know the brand, but it is outside my reach"".
If number-ones are too costly, there are “other number ones”, brands of exceptional quality, comparable to the great luxurious brands, that manufacture perfect and long-lasting bags, worthy of the most refined arms. French Lamarthe is one of them and so is Italian Furla. Their models are not counterfeited and they cost about a fifth of the others. A tenth, if you wait for the sales."
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Published in Fashion and Beauty by Malena Mangas on 01/05/2010
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