There are certain reoccurring reasons that people state prevent them from buying replica bags. Some authentic purists often even get offended when they hear other people may mix in a fake or two into their collection, and they begin to spurn a list of criticisms, three key ones which include:
The bags are made by factory workers in poor conditions in China (or another developing country).
The original brands make it with the care and love of a true artisan – that is why they deserve to be paid thousands of dollars for their art.
The bags support terrorists, gangs, and every other despicable organization out there.
Now don’t get me wrong. There are good reasons not to buy replicas of certain bags. For example there are certain bags I like to buy authentic because the embroidery or handwork is not something that I have seen eloquently created in the replica market. Or when a certain bag by a certain designer that I love is so fringe or non-popular that I know a replica manufacturer cannot get perfectly right (hence why I recommend sticking with many popular models when it comes to shopping for replica bags).
Some of my friends get duplicate fake bags of their real ones, simply because they don’t want to worry about their thousand dollar investment getting dirty or deteriorating quickly. So I definitely understand that there are situations where it is better to buy authentic, while there are other situations where it is better to buy fake.
However the key point I am trying to make here is that this air of snobbery and those oft mentioned criticism I listed above are not justified, especially after the damning New Yorker article which was released recently, which makes explicit the fact that all of our favorite designers, whether it be Gucci, Prada, or even Chanel, outsource their work to Chinese factories that are located in Europe. The article even states that many of these brands outsourced their work directly to Asia at certain points, before they realized they could not do that and simultaneously label their products “Made in Italy”.
I find the article very ironic because very so often on this blog I notice that in the comments certain individuals pop up and use luxury or designer goods as a tool to attack others, try to elevate themselves, and essentially use it as a mechanism to deem themselves superior. Examples include:
This prominent niche of people who I call orthodox authentic shoppers like to think they have a certain air of moral superiority when it comes to buying strictly authentic bags. And this is what is wrong. These are the biggest shockers I read in the article via 20/20 investigation .
1.WORKERS EMPLOYED TO MAKE BAGS FOR TOP BRANDS (E.G. GUCCI) WORK IN VERY POOR CONDITIONS.
Based on the price tag people tend to naturally assume that the bags are made by artisans who are paid well and who treated like humans. This is wrong. The article highlights how many workers work in poor conditions where they are yelled at to meet quotas, work long hours, and sometimes are not even paid for their work (which has lead to protests against certain factories). Read this snippet from the article:
One of the employees who protested later told me that he had been paid only twelve hundred euros a month, with no benefits, to work in a freezing-cold room. He remembered working on products for companies including Ferragamo, Prada, and Dior. The crew chief, he said, “would scream at us to work faster, to get more pieces done.” (The employees were officially paid a higher salary, to comply with the law, but, according to a union representative, managers required them to withdraw their “extra” wages and give that money to the owner.)
2. MOST DESIGNER PRODUCTS ARE MADE BY CHINESE WORKERS IN A TOWN CALLED PRATO, ITALY.
Factories import workers from China as well as other developing countries to work in factories in Prato which have deals with top brands to make their goods.
3. IF 2 STEPS OF THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS TAKE PLACE IN ITALY THEN A PRODUCT CAN BE LABELLED “MADE IN ITALY”
This allows designer brands to outsource the remaining steps to countries with cheap labour in order to maximize their profits. In the ‘90s brands would make their goods from start to finish in China or Eastern European countries (where labour costs are lower than Europe) and lie to their consumers labelling their products “Made in Italy”. They stopped when they were caught.
4. IT COSTS GUCCI ABOUT $75 USD PER BAG.
Read this snippet to see how much it costs per average Gucci bag produced:
Arturo took me through the economics of doing work for luxury-fashion brands. He was paid a set fee for an order, no matter how long it took to complete. He generally lost money on the first bags he finished, but his workers got much faster with repetition, and the later iterations were profitable. When he was fulfilling Gucci contracts, he said, the company paid him an average of nineteen euros an hour. He showed me a bag that featured the company’s insignia fabric, with its interlocking “G”s, and said, “This fabric would cost fifteen euros a metre. But they make millions and millions of metres, so they don’t pay fifteen. Maybe ten. The leather here costs maybe fifteen to twenty euros. It’s two euros for the zipper, plus the money they pay us—that’s the cost. And they put it on the market at between ten and fifteen times that cost.”
And another:
In 2014, an Italian artisan spoke to the investigative television journalist Sabrina Giannini. Gucci had given him a big contract, he said, but the pay was so low—twenty-four euros a bag—that he had subcontracted the work to a Chinese mill, where employees worked fourteen-hour days and were paid half what he made. When the bags made it to stores, they were priced at between eight hundred and two thousand dollars.
THE BOTTOM LINE
I could go on and on and on about how this article debunks a lot of myths about authentic bags being made, but that’s unnecessary.
The prime take away from this all is that there are wrong reasons not to buy replicas, and right ones. The ones discussed in this article are the wrong reasons not to buy replicas.
Another key takeaway is that as much one covets designer brands they are a business at the end of the day – i.e. a money making enterprise, and as a result we should not fetishize these brands to the point where we forget that they too can have disheartening manufacturing practices. There is a big percentage of “fugazee” when it comes to luxury goods.
What do you think of the story? Leave a comment below as I’d love to know!
I will stick to my Zara, Guess, Ck, Aldo etc. where my pocket can reach so I can invest money wisely for my latter years.
Not saying if I get a designer item as a gift I wont take it but…not buying it and I’m sure with my “lower end brands” I look one million times better than Robbas et al
A Gucci bag costs $75 from material to labour to finished product….Interesting!!!!!
People who wear fake name brands in my opinion are people who feel like they need to fit in. They want to be held at a certain financial level. A level that they know in their hearts they truly cannot afford to be on. They feel like if they are wearing a certain brand then it tells people that they are rich or living comfortably. They want ppl to believe that they are able to afford these things, but the truth of the matter is, they really can’t …..so they buy knockoffs just to put on a show. Now the people who are wearing the real authentic pieces, are looking sideways at these wanna-bes, laughing their heads off. Ppl who are used to wearing real name brands, can spot a fake anywhere. Suh ppl jus a laugh afta dem. Do they think that people are stupid? You don’t have a job, you don’t own the car that you drive, you don’t own anything of substantial value, yet you’re drenched in Gucci from your head to your toes. Lmao. I think it is silly and looks so stupid. Smh. But some ppl are willing to make a mockery of themselves…..All in the name of brands. And scrap that damn bullsh** about….”ppl wear what they want to or do what they want”. It look fool fool an mi naw stop seh suh.
I sent it met and reason I worked for burgdorf for 17 years my mom worked Nieman 22 years and I can attest buying authentic is a mental state to allow one to think they are in a different tax and class demographic .
Same so.
sender you’re an idiot! and if you despise those people who wear knock off or fake apparels then you’re a bigger idiot! if you are a “negro” you not doing yourself any service spending big money on those people’s brands, they don’t want you in their apparels anyways, just ask auntie jane opera, for too long black people have this twisted mindset that luxury and name brand products clothes, cars etc. assert their true value due to self esteem issues(just ask the bleache)and the harsh reality is to the contrary, those people strongly believe we deprecate their brand just by our skin colour, wise up people.
You total missed the point ! This was not to advocate either way ! Omg and no not everybody who wear fake wants to fit in if they like a damn bag and don’t want to spend 5k. Just because your opinion differ does not mean 20/20 newyork post are idiots
Mamacita that is bullshit . Peter quit wealthy millionaire wears replica he can afford owns investment banks ? So that makes no sense that only wanna be wear fakes ! Do you know how many celebrities wear fake bag and shoes girl bye . People wear what they want fake or real material a ras material , where not talking about fake medicine
I honestly believe i can afford a one Gucci bag or shoe, would i buy it ABSOLUTELY NOT?? I cringe if i have to throw away 900 bucks on a bag when i could pay for private school for my son. BITCH PLEASE!!. ID rather by a banana republic bag for $200..Ill sleep better at night..
@Ramjam I think you misunderstood the intent of the sender. If I read correctly, the sender stated in the comment section that even buying the “authentic” product is just to create a facade of their true income bracket. The article also explained that truly it’s all vanity at the end of the day.
All those major companies outsourced their jobs overseas many years ago. Think about it, how did these replicas look almost real? Because they are ALL made in China for the most part. The Chinese are able to replicate because they are also making the original high end product. The only difference is the big names can invest in better materials that’s all.
Not all wealthy people care for expensive apparels. They invest their wealth in things that can double and triple their assets. Why we the people that truly can’t afford it invest in these things that depreciate in value before it leaves the stores is a modern day marvel. And before you state you “can” afford it? If you are still paying rent or a mortgage then no you can’t. One illness can leave you homeless. If you lay in a coma in intensive care and you can’t completely pay your entire medical bill plus have enough assets to cover you no matter how long your recovery process is then you can’t afford it.
Gucci and all these other designers are billionaires with some of their earnings in offshore accounts to avoid taxes while we the people are all enslaved to the system. We then want to pretend to be better than others. If there are no trust fund babies on here then we better wake up to the truth of our reality.
Same suh. Thanks alot cause a nuh everybody can agree to disagree or understand when someone is simlpy trying ti make a point via their opinion. :thanks2 :thanks2
agree!
I honestly prefer to invest in memorable experiences or hard assets. I see a bag or shoes as something fleeting because after a while I will not be interested in it anymore. The only bag that supposedly keep any long-term value is the Hermes Birkin bags, everything else be it clothes or shoes will lose its value after a few wears so it is not a solid investment in my eyes to spend so much for something that has no return on it. I would prefer to fly premium and spend a week or so in a lovely hotel in Seychelles or Zanzibar with someone I care about and have that lifetime memory than use the same money spend on a bag that will not produce any meaningful memory in a week.
Devils advocate……Suppose you get Alzheimer’s disease and don’t even remember your own name much less that lovely hotel in Seychelles you went to once upon a time?
The spirit is eternal and always remember, the body is just a vessel and vessels break and eventually die, but the spirit will carry the knowledge of every lifetime experience it has ever encountered. Even Alzeihmer’s patients have moments of complete lucidity even just for an extremely brief moment, how did that happen? Because you never truly ever forget. So like I said, experiences and solid assets are what I am about, the assets I will have no use for in the afterlife but since my lineage tends to produce women I am setting them up so the women in my bloodline will not have to suffer as much in this man’s world. The experiences I will take with me into eternity.
I could upvote your comment a thousand times. That is how I think too!
But we have to remember that some don’t have legal documents to pass airport. In any case they wouldn’t know where to locate or how to spell the Seychelles Islands.