Bag Bliss the bag blog
Date Added: June 13, 2006
Here is another article that I came across for all you designer handbag lovers. I hate fakes, no big surprise. This is a good article by D. Parvaz for the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
There are those who knowingly buy knockoffs, and those who are suckered by con artists.
Those who buy knockoffs on purpose make their own deals with the devil. Carrying a fake handbag supports an illegal industry that encompasses sweatshop factories and theft of intellectual property. On top of all that, it’s just stone cold frontin’.
Indeed, counterfeit items often are purchased to satisfy a trend craving or to stick it to The Man, who thinks it’s reasonable to charge hundreds – or thousands -of dollars for a bag. Shoppers may not be paying a high price for fake goods, but rest assured, someone is. The January issue of Harper’s Bazaar reported on the nightmare conditions of children working in China’s knockoff factories, just so Americans (currently the second-largest consumer of counterfeit goods in the world behind South Africa) can satisfy the urge to carry a status item on the cheap.
The cost of this racket is enormous, both socially, in terms of human rights violations at sweatshops, and economically. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the knockoff market costs businesses roughly $200 billion – the estimated revenue lost by authorized luxury dealers as well as companies representing legitimate, albeit less expensive, lines. It also cuts into legitimate jobs at factories where genuine products are made, and it deprives cities and states of untold billions in lost tax revenue, as counterfeiters seldom charge sales tax.
But if your goal is simply to score a deal on the genuine article, you should arm yourself with a little bit of information before shelling out cash for what you think is a real designer item.
To be clear, buying anything online, and especially secondhand, is risky. Consumers can’t count on fashion houses to help them distinguish between real and fake merchandise. Companies contacted for this story would only issue their corporate anti-counterfeiting statements and nothing else. Their stance is that the only guarantee that you’re getting the real thing is to buy it from the label’s own store, Web site or authorized dealers. . . . .
Read the whole article and tips on how to spot a knockoff designer replica handbag in The Bag Forum
