In defence of super-fake designer handbags – fashion’s new arch nemesis

The designer bag is fashion’s long-time beau. The industry has clutched onto the accessory and used it as a mouthpiece for status and style in a love story as old as time itself. Eye-watering prices of over $200,000 for a Hermés Birkin or remortgaging your house to get your mitts on a Chanel is now the norm, and showing off your new arm candy on social media is simply a must.

Scroll through any platform, and you will find influencers showing off their latest purchases, and it doesn’t matter if they are doing a Zara haul or what fast fashion you just *need* to purchase this week – they will sneakily finish off their outfit with a chic collector’s item that costs more than your yearly salary. It’s like a fun game that designer bag enthusiasts play, where they don’t explicitly show off the item, but if you know then you know. And we do know, and we do want. But the prices are just simply not in the realms of reality for the majority of people, but as enthusiasts, we also know that the price of art is one that we cannot shrug off and ignore.

This is where the super-fakes come in, and as the name suggests, the pirate purses are quite simply super at being fake. There are numerous videos out there on how to spot a super-fake and not get duped by a feigned Fendi or copied Celine. But more intriguingly, there is now a rise in the knowing purchase of these super-fakes. As opposed to the 00s, when the idea of a fake designer bag was seen as tacky, we are seeing dupes priced around the $100 and up range, and they are almost as good as the real thing. People are going out to cop a few of their fave designer dupes to save face and more importantly, save their hard-earned cash. 

One of the biggest issues fashion houses face in the luxury market is the consumption of counterfeit products. In the UK, people who produce, sell, or possess these goods may even be committing criminal offences. Is it worth being locked up for a Dior saddle? People seem to think so. The minute details that differ between fake and luxury are so small that the naked untrained eye doesn’t even notice them. The double Gucci ‘G’ may be overlapping by a few more millimetres, or the colour of Louis Vuitton brown may be one shade too dark. You can barely tell the difference now that fake designer goods are getting so technical, and people are snatching up the opportunity to take their naughty little secrets to the street.

There is a reason that we all want one of these bags – the designs are flawless and we are bombarded with images of the perfect outfit and it’s mainstay companion. How could we miss out? Even fashion goddesses Samantha and Carrie buy a fake Fendi out of a trunk of a car in LA in an episode of Sex and The City. The knockoff industry has become almost iconic in itself at this point. It must be said, there is an element to these inauthentic items that is rather commendable. 

Underground Reddit groups are also rising, and sharing their tips and tricks to getting the most indistinguishable fake money can buy. They suggest “trusted sellers that have been reviewed by nearly a million members”, and throw seller names like ‘Dirty Little Secret’ and ‘LuxLife’ into the mix. They aren’t dirt cheap, as discussed on the site, but significantly cheaper than the real thing. This is the world of designer bag replica enthusiasts. They ask each other to check the authenticity of sellers; they leave reviews on what stitching was perfect; they transfer and bargain with each other; and they keep up to date with the hottest replicas on the market. It almost feels like a little Ocean’s 8 community of naughty wheelers and dealers around the world. 

Previously, the myth of fake bags was perpetuated by the idea you could only get them in other parts of the world. Southeast Asia, Northern Africa, and Mexico have big counterfeit industries and ship them worldwide. But now, there are a plethora of homegrown IRL communities, away from Reddit chats, that house some of these fake designer luxury goods. 

In the North of England in Manchester, ‘Counterfeit Street’, as it was fondly named, has seen recent crackdowns by police who are seizing millions of pounds worth of knockoffs – a large portion of these being bags. This dodgy backdoor kind of selling is trumped by London’s fakes industry, who are selling them right under our noses. Camden Market, Portobello Road, Covent Garden – you name a place where stalls gather, there will be fakes. There is a whole consumer base when it comes to these types of super-fakes as well, with buyers boasting online about how they aren’t fussed about the real thing and how they snatched a look-a-like for a fiver. “Real or fake: Goyard edition” posts one TikToker. “You single-handedly just convinced thousands of people to add this to their cart,” replies a commenter. “Just bought the fake – thanks for that,” says another. Other videos include “I just got my fake Louis, let me review” and an ASMR “Watch me unbox my new super-fake purse”. It’s the new luxury lifestyle in itself. 

But with this limited price to pay for the bag also comes the price of the art itself. It sounds like a conceptual premise, but when you break down what this costs the companies, plus the time of their own designers and seamstress teams, the effects are detrimental. 

So why is the super-fakes industry booming right now? The decades-long run of knockoff production may have reached its peak for many reasons. The current cost of living crisis, the over-exposure on social media to these must-have out-of-reach designs, and the encouraging online users that come with it are all major factors. But for now, the communities that the super-fakes have cultivated continue to thrive, and those in the know when it comes to collector’s items are suddenly out of this new inner circle – and maybe that is where the bitterness truly lies.