|
 Handbags
are a wondrous and beautiful extension of
our very personalities. We can make quite
the fashion statement with what handbag we
choose to use. A handbag can change
according to our tastes, our emotions, and
our moods. What one person thinks is a good
handbag may not be so good for another
person. One deciding factor to many people –
except those that are the social elite of
society – is how much that handbag is going
to cost. Not that you want to buy a cheap
handbag, you just want to make sure you get
what you are paying for. One way you can
make sure to get what you pay for is by
being able to detect frauds. Do you know how
to detect a fake Prada handbag? Most people
don’t.
Is It A Real Prada?
Of course, the is no guarantee that the
handbag you are getting is a genuine,
authentic Prada. However, these following
steps will help keep you at the top of your
game. These steps will teach you know how to
detect a fake Prada handbag. While far from
complete, this offers a guideline.
1. Check the hardware. All Prada hardware is
antique brass. If you find hardware that is
rusted, old, or worn, then it probably is
not a Prada. Check the coloration, the size,
and the condition. All Prada products –
clothes, handbags, and/or coats – offer the
same superb and excellent hardware. This
includes zippers, clasps, closures, buckles,
and any possible chains that may be attached
to the handbag.
2. Check the handle/strap. Without fail, all
Prada handbags have the best handle/straps
available in the industry today. High
quality equates to no frayish, strayish
threads. People would not spend upwards of
$2,000 USD for a handbag just to have a
handle/strap that was cheap and didn’t last
longer than the handbag.
3. Have you looked at that lining? The
lining of all these luxurious handbags is of
the finest materials. All Prada handbags
have the unique Prada logo embroidered
repeatedly into the lining no matter the
material. Often, this material is super fine
leather, velvet, or the finest cotton. The
seams on the inside are all but invisible.
4. Where did you get the handbag? If you get
your handbag from a ritzy department store
such as Saks or Neiman Marcus, the chances
are pretty good you have an original. If you
get your handbag from the street corner for
$29.99 USD, the chances are it isn’t an
authentic Prada. All Prada handbags have a
serial number and tag of authenticity
located on them. This is a great way to
detect the real from the fake.
Obviously when you want to know how to
detect a fake Prada handbag, this is only a
guideline and not a rule. Use common sense,
do your research, and expect to pay a small
fortune. Following these simple steps will
insure that you get the most bang for your
buck.
How to spot a fake
Knockoff designer goods are
readily available on the street in such areas such
as Los Angeles' Santee Street and New York's Canal
Street.
And the internet is full of online auctions and
cybersellers offering "Inspired by" copies and
outright fakes.
The old method of spotting fakes was simple: flimsy
hardware, cheap leather and misspelled logos were a
giveaway.
Now, fakes are so good (and expensive) that you
simply can't tell the difference.
So how do you know what's real and what's not?
Some clues:
* The price. A new Louis Vuitton handbag for $100 is
not authentic. The real thing often sells for $500
to well over $1000. Same thing for Prada and Gucci.
* Where it's being sold. Authorized dealers for
Chanel, LV, etc. do not sell handbags out of the
trunk of a car. Nor do they sell them at online
auctions or at home parties.
* Point of origin tag. Designer apparel or leather
goods with a "Made in Taiwan" tag are not authentic.
Authenticity cards, product literature
and tags and serial numbers
We used to see Prada clothes with fake Saks
tags attached to them - how's that for
pathetic? Sadly, the fake Prada clothes are
still there - generic, ugly $5 polyester
clothes with a fake red Prada tag sewn on
the side. Awful "Juicy Couture" knockoff
velour, terry sweatsuits -with a Prada tag!
Please trust me on this - the fake Prada
label on these clothes does *not* make these
clothes authentic Prada!
Beware of stolen pictures and item
descriptions!
Some items pictured in auctions look real -
because they are! Some sellers steal
pictures of authentic items sold by
legitimate sellers.
The only way you can spot this is to watch
auctions vigilantly and make sure that two
different sellers don't have the same
pictures.
There's photos of a Blue Jean Birkin, a Gold
Birkin and a Black Birkin that have been
making the eBay rounds for months - I'm sick
of looking at them! Sometimes it will be
obvious when a picture has been stolen -
look for oddly cropped views of items, for
example. (they look this way because the
photo thief has cropped out the original
owner's name or something). "Fake" sellers
also use composites of photos from different
bags (showing a closeup of an authentic
bag's telltale clasp along with a full shot
of a fake bag.) Another telltale sign - one
that I have seen often with people selling
Hermès "Birkin" bags that are fake or they
do not have - a discrepancy between the
picture and the item description. For
example, Birkin bags of different sizes have
different proportions. And each Hermes
leather has a very distinctive look.
Can You Spot The Fake?
By: Jim Edwards
Published: October 28, 2002
With a market full of knockoffs, Brandweek
hit the streets to expose the fake bags,
fragrances and other would-be designer
merchandise. Two years ago, Gucci executives
discovered that discount retailer Daffy's
had been selling fake copies of its designer
Jackie O bags. Gucci immediately sued the
store chain, demanding to know its
suppliers.
When a retailer is caught selling knockoff
goods, it can normally expect to be banned
from carrying the brand in addition to
paying heavy fines. In this case, however,
Daffy's raised a curious defense: The store
executives believed the bags were real.
Over the next two years, the suit devolved
from a simple request for an injunction into
a scorched-earth battle over differences in
leather, buckles, hasps, straps, sizes and
reptile skin?in pink, black and what the
judge called "lurid purple." Tellingly,
neither side chose to publicize the war.
To make its case, Gucci brought to court a
genuine Jackie O and a fake, and had its
head of quality control, a 31-year employee,
testify that he had "never seen" a real bag
that looked like a Daffy's fake.
The judge was unimpressed. He noted that
when both bags were compared even Gucci
could provide no proof as to which was fake
and which was real. "The handbags were
counterfeit," the judge agreed, "albeit a
high-quality product capable of fooling even
the most discriminating buyers."
In fact, Daffy's managers had gone to
lengths to ascertain the origin of the bags.
First, they took a Jackie O to a Gucci store
where the staff pronounced it real. Then
they sent a broken bag to Gucci to be
repaired under warranty; it came back fixed,
without comment. Further, Daffy's noted, the
bags had come from a reputable supplier and
had been as expensive as the real thing.
In September, the judge ordered Daffy's to
stop selling the bags, but ruled against
Gucci on all other counts, allowing Daffy's
to continue selling Gucci product.
Undeniably, the market is awash in
counterfeit products. Barbara Kolson, svp
and general counsel at Kate Spade, says that
for every genuine bag the New York designer
sells, there is at least one fake sold
illegally. "Our problem is obviously of the
magnitude of Chanel's, Prada and others,"
she said. The lost revenue is about $70
million yearly, she estimated.
To assess the quality of the fake goods
trade, Brandweek took a stroll along Canal
Street in New York, a strip famed for its
black market. We invited two experts from
Boston-based brand security consultancy
GenuOne, famous brands manager David
Margolis and chief marketing officer Andy
Barron.
All the bags we saw were pronounced fake by
the pair. Bogus Gucci and pseudo-Kate Spade
were particularly popular. "The labels
aren't embroidered on, they're stuck on,"
noted Barron. "The lining is either generic
or it's misbranded. They don't think people
are going to look inside." He also found
metal Prada logos missing their corner
rivets and crudely embossed leather. But
overall, Margolis said, "some of it looks
very close to the real stuff."
Fragrances were a different story. Barron
was particularly taken with a Burberry
bottle hawked from a wheeled cart outside a
pizza parlor. "They had the right
details?the right darkness of wood, the
whole packaging. It's got the right
drawstring bag, even the label on the
bottom," he noted.
Margolis reckoned the Burberry was genuine,
but had come from the "gray market," genuine
product that has putatively fallen off the
back of a truck. In an effort to boost
profits, designers in recent years have cut
costs by outsourcing their manufacturing to
factories in Asia. The factories then make
more product than the designer orders and
send the surplus to street dealers in Europe
and the U.S.
GenuOne recommends any number of high-tech
gizmos to guard against fraud, including
embossed holograms, invisible ink, X-ray
detection, digital watermarking, intaglio
printing (which textures paper like a
banknote) and dyes that change color with
the angle of the sun.
Clients are slowly coming around, but part
of the problem is the designers themselves.
In their rush to deliver year-on-year
growth, many have reduced retail prices.
And, whereas designer apparel was once only
available in Paris, it is now on sale at the
local mall, reminded Pamela Danziger,
president of the luxury consultancy Unity
Marketing and author of Why People Buy
Things They Don't Need.
Marketers have thus trained their consumers
to be, well, cheap. In a study sponsored by
House & Garden, Danziger found that women
made most purchases at a discount in all
luxury categories except for makeup. "This
has serious implications for luxury
marketers," she said. When faced with an
expensive Jackie O and a cheap counterfeit,
Gucci will lose every time. "If you can't
really tell the difference and you're
getting it for 10% of the cost, why not?"
The consumer needs re-educating, argued Kate
Spade's Kolson. "The real problem is a
strange perception among middle-class women
and their daughters that it's OK to buy
knockoffs," she said. "Some of them just
don't care. They think it's cute." Each fake
damages the brand and, judging from the tone
of her voice, hurts Kolson personally. She
recently received a letter from the chief
counsel of a Senate subcommittee, whose
father had been caught selling "cheesy"
counterfeits in his gas station in
California.
"He has the ear of President Bush! I told
him I'm letting your father off, but I'm
keeping your name and number to torture
you," Kolson said.
Until recently, designers refused to talk
about their fake problem. (Neither Gucci nor
LVMH returned calls for this story.) Now
they have formed trade associations like the
International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition
to campaign against fakes.
But it's an uphill battle. Consider this:
During the Gucci lawsuit, the genuine Gucci
bag was stolen from the court clerk's office
before it got to the judge. "The court could
only offer its apologies [for] this
embarrassing event," the judge wrote. The
bag was not recovered.
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