The glory that comes from asserting that “the egos of true designers are trash”?
Spending money on high-end luxury goods has long been a pleasure for ladies – people of the weak sex but possessing financial potential that make men shy. But for some women with different tastes, the glory for them is to find fakes that look more real than… the real thing.
To satisfy this “unruly” ego and hobby, a number of groups have been set up for rich women to hunt for sophisticatedly crafted imitation handbags. Let’s try to follow Lisa (Manhattan – USA), who has a super-rich best friend, owns a huge collection of Birkin bags, a house worth nearly 250 billion VND and travels by private jet. Lisa confided: “I used to think everything was real, until the day my friend confessed that the Birkins were fake and she bought them at ‘Tupperware parties’.
As a housewife with an income of about 70 billion VND a year, Lisa also bought a few branded bags. But since hearing her best friend’s confession, she has sold almost all of her designer goods and collected money for fake Hermès Birkins.
Last year, she spent more than 230 million dong on shiny handbags. “That doesn’t make my husband angry, because I don’t really spend too much money,” Lisa shared. The desired items of women appear in every photo on her Instagram, sometimes arranged around pets, sometimes lying neatly on the beach, at the table at the most luxurious restaurants in America.
With a sharp mind, Lisa embarked on a search for the origin of the items (Artwork)
It was this fate that led Lisa to RepLadies – Reddit page of the millennials community looking to buy fake luxury goods. Exquisite imitations of designer shoes to Rimowa suitcases are available, but the handbags are really the star here. You can get anything in any color for as little as 1 to 10% of the original price – from vintage Chanel bags, Hermès Birkin crocodile skins, Telfar bags, to billions of items. beatiful.
Founded in 2016, this Reddit site has nearly 200,000 members. In fact, it is closely related to the kind of culture that mocks genuine brands in the belief that buying fakes is a way to overthrow the “luxury regime”. Notably, once a member of the group strongly stated: “The ego of designer brands is trash”.
Ironically, this site also provides instructions on how to communicate in Chinese, in order to avoid members wishing to buy “high-end” fake bags and mistakenly buy them… “low-end” fake bags drifting away. floating from China. The motto here is: “We all want the best, but we’re in a real black market.”
People are afraid of buying fake goods floating around on a black market like RepLadies
According to a survey published last year, these members spent nearly 70 billion VND on counterfeit goods. In addition to the wealthy women who own authentic designer bags, there are many CEOs, venture capitalists, diplomats and advisors of Big Tech are also members here. They can totally afford the real thing, but still buy fakes!
That’s it!
In RepLadies, the fakes are not much different from the real ones, even almost the same or… the quality is even better. For them, the glory doesn’t come from a collection of original brands, but from finding a fake so flawless that it feels more like the real thing.
A girl who used to work in real estate said: “It’s the thrill of shopping – the feeling of finding a bargain. I don’t just want it; I want to feel like I’ve made a successful business deal.”. She boasted that she had thousands of imitations, including nearly a hundred bags and a set of fake BVLGARI necklaces that cost more than 230 million VND (while the real thing cost more than 1.7 billion VND).
However, most of Lisa’s wealthy friends rejected her offer to buy fake goods. “Literally, they told me they were too classy to go buy fakes. Instead, they buy real Hermès, and then stress every day thinking: ‘Shall I take that bag?’ ‘What if it’s out of stock?’ Hey there’s no need to stress, you should just be satisfied!”she said.
“Today, imitations are getting better and better,” said a director of strategy for the Hamptons. “They’re more durable. They’re meticulously crafted. You could tell that everything is handmade. Meanwhile, high-end brands have recently taken a bold approach to price increases. The Chanel Clasic Flap Bag has grown by 60% since 2019, leaving people wondering exactly what benefits they have from buying the real thing.”
Cindy, a mom in Flushing who discovered the fake bags after spending several thousand dollars on a broken Dior, said: ”Imagine how we spend all our money on ‘auth’ handbags. You’ll never get rich that way, will you?”
Fake sellers sometimes lead a very boring life. She can walk out of a six-figure penthouse in a busy neighborhood where an extra room is used as a showroom. Each of this woman’s parties is where guests are encouraged to compare real Birkins with the fake bags she’s selling. One Hamptons-based RepLady member said: “I’ve seen a lot of influencers doing this and there are a few famous stars as well.”
However, the bags are still occasionally seized, and RepLadies members receive scary letters from major fashion houses. They often contain threats such as prison sentences, fines of billions of dong. But in general, that’s just one of the tricks for the brand to “scare”. The global counterfeit market is made up of a multitude of complexities, so all the fashion houses can do is spend billions of dollars on lawyers to try and sue.
There are several theories from the RepLadies about the origin of the super clones. There is a theory that, within the fashion brands themselves, there are factories that make fake goods so that they can make money in any way. Others say the counterfeiters are “extended factories” – bags that are not quality controlled and are smuggled out by employees. Some say that workers manufacture replicas with materials that are not used with the real thing, while others claim that replica factories operate completely independently of any brands. .
With contacts and social media accounts, anyone can get a fake bag, but access to high-quality fake bags is becoming increasingly rare. RepLadies, for a few months now, has encroached on social networking sites – the “hideout” of fake dealers. Here they have access to more of the unique experiences of the representative world, such as the huge second-hand market and top Hermès sellers, and can even fulfill exclusive orders.
That’s true, this time is really “mixed gold” all!
Source: The Cut
at Blogtuan.info – Source: Kenh14.Vn – Read the original article here
