Spotting Fakes - Topic of the day 2/3/25
Oh no, you think the item you purchased might be fake! How can you tell? What do you do to prevent it from happening?
95 Replies
I buy like 90% of my stuff second hand online(and everything thats designer), so I can chip in.
Aside from really obvious fake stuff, you have to ask yourself is it even likely a certain thing will be faked? The more complex fakes of stuff like Rick do exist (and can be very close indeed), but most fakes will be of stuff thats popular, hyped, easy to replicate. Tshirts, hoodies etc, esp brands like Balenci that are especially popular in China.
Reddit is actually a good resource in two ways:
1. Theres a reddit for most brands, full of people whowill probably know far more than you ever will about legit checking.
2. Check the rep subreddits and see if there have been fakes of what you're after made
You can go a step further and reverse image search through the various chinese sites as well, a lot of rep resellers are real lazy and will just copy and paste the pictures from their suppliers.
Not a failsafe method, but if a seller isn’t posting material/production tags for name brand stuff (especially even after I ask to see them) then I assume it’s probably fake.
what is the general consensus held here about reps/fakes
bad
let me rephrase actually
buy reps if you want
but expect to get clowned on posting about them in the FASHION discord
A lot of times with brands I like, there will be significant differences in performance with counterfeit products. I once traded for a pair of acronym pants and they had no water resistance. There were other small details that were off when comparing to pics / descriptions on their site as well but the lack of weather resistance properties were the tipping point.
They have their place. I don’t see an issue if people don’t pass them off as authentic, especially when selling.
understandable my only reps are some travis scott nikes
I’ve got a pair of rep acronym pants that resell for like $1k+. Idc how much I ever make, I’ll never feel okay paying almost a mortgage payment for an article of clothing.
damn
i like buying fakes/cheap versions of items to test run them - mostly jewelry though. it helps to understand what size i want
the person i bought them from is apparently an actual factory worker in china so idk if they’re actually reps or not
sounds like a rep bigman
i’m quick to tell you i’m wearing reps though i’m not getting clowned
Some fake products can be just as good as the products they’re emulating.
Reps are dumb as hell
i just like the reverse swoosh 🤓
some of the unbranded but still rep stuff has pretty good quality
Deliberate satire of stupid brands is good
sometimes i'll buy stuff on aliexpress and not know it's a rep because no branding :xd: they've held up well over the years
i get not wanting to spend a lot of money for thing, but in most cases there's another thing that accomplishes a v similar goal w/o being a rep
buying heavily repped thing 2nd hand is cooked though, in most cases i'd just say dont do it
or tbh dont buy it at all fuck it
my hot / pretentious take is that if you're buying like zara / fast fashion it's the equivalent of buying reps / fakes
when gucci was popular they came out with a few fake lines and i really enjoyed that
Rep production is also largely unregulated and can run into some human rights territory
Not that high fashion doesn’t also do this
Agree
But it’s more regulated
basically all silver jewelry
Facts lol
there's cases of ppl buying the real thing, then shipping the very similar rep back for return and it just being part of the stock
so now ppl buying retail are being double owned
But I’ll take knowing where my clothes are coming from and knowing the people making them are treated with at least a modicum of respect if it means spending a bit more
That’s worth it tbh
shut up cowboy
sorry i just felt the urge to day that
you're 100% right
i saw this when i worked at a dept store! but again mostly with fine jewelry haha
I was about to be so surprised at your stance on this lmao
moral of the story is like, if ur pressed about an item ur buying being fake (ie not insanely rich or w/e) buy something else
I love buying obvious fakes
i think it's just a personal barrier of like... what level of distillation / reproduction you're okay with
The gucccis and the prabas of the world
just talking from a design perspective
Genuinely asking. I feel like I've seen at various points that reps will often be used as a spot to raise funds for far more unsavory things like literally funding terrorist groups.
That feels insane to me but also plausible so I'm curious if anyone has clearer info on that topic?
i wish i had loaded up on obvious fakes last time i went to china :nooooo:
like char owns a pair of shorts that are zara but identical to my dries shorts, not sure if id consider that a fake the same way like a canal st bag is
There was this beautiful balenciaca hat I gave my friend and I should’ve bought two
I kept my diar scarf though
according to us law it's not a ripoff lol
idr the number but it's like 8-12 points of difference
Wait wait wait Seth
Hold on
That’s conflating two things
I bought my shorts of ssense
do u have a pic
i thought those were da zoro
Yeah, Ssense most recently got caught for this
oops am i cancelled
oh interesting
dam maryjane makes shorts now
I nearly bought a tshirt for fun that said like BLENCIGAGA
okay but according to my FEELINGS
i actually dont care that much
only fakes that are invalid in my eyes r ricks
:LegitCheck:
No I don’t :(((
for a while steve madden made (might still make) convincing knockoffs of a popular hermes sandal and the "is this ethical" arguments that ensued in the fb groups for months were so funny
I support buying fake nike shoes because honestly the quality is probably better, and nobody believes anyones travis scotts are real anyway
I think your point on fast fashion is worthwhile fwiw
Especially if considering labor conditions like warpweft was saying.
@sethshots my only Zara knockoff is issey pleats
It’s absolutely happening but oil, arms manufacturing, and governments are probably funding more terrorist groups than any other methodology
the one thing fast fashion has in this is that it's not killing the 2nd market's confidence in buying 2nd hand
Maybe try noyt to buy anything thats made in the worst conditions possible
And then I have a fake margiela ring I bought off aliexpress bc it’s funny
rep travis scott nikes is so funny
yeah fair
This is why I won't buy MiUSA stuff new
i just dont buy shit anymore tbh
okay this is a lie but I AM cheap
Crazy take, most of those companies are small businesses and have nothing to do with the US government or larger economy as a whole
brother...
soniccapitalism.svg
Okay lol just saw your response to yourself
:yummy:
What a terrible day to have eyes
😞😞😞
i support everyone who support me and denounce all who question my actions!!
I bought an Acne sweatshirt from LuxeSwap recently but it felt so thin and small that I suspect it's fake. The tags look like the real deal though.
I don’t care about you in either direction
I think acne quality just kinda sucks tbh
I’m rarely buying visually branded clothing so TBH as long as it’s a good enough quality and it’s what I’m looking for (a shirt of X color and y size etc) then I don’t really pay attention to if it’s fake or not
ok i was just making a general statement
Ye I’m just giving you shit you’re good homie lol
I don’t think clothing weight is an indicator of quality tbh
LOL i was like damn man i was jk
That's true, but of all the sweat shirts and hoodies I've handled, those were the thinnest and roughest on the inside. Honestly my cheap Adidas hoodie that I use for jogging feels better made.
acne changed the quality of certain materials and that make me think their newer stuff was fake :xd:
like their wool got a lot scratchier and a bit thinner
nah I have a hoodie from them thats honestly amazing quality
admittedly its older, maybe they enshittified
they did
got bought out by a chinese company a bit ago
:nooooo:
something is good and reasonably priced -> it becomes popular for these attributes -> it gets bought -> the purchasing entity strips quality, forcing the brand to become a shell of its former self
gotta love capitalism
gotta make space for the new
Acne is not a shell of its former self, they just spent money on designs than chasing minimalist quality
And if u want to see what that’s like you can look towards the relevance of Norse projects or APC
the number of times mfers can't be bothered to get the spelling correct or even slightly consistent fonts...far too much
I'd love to see an interview with one of the higher end fake makers. Theres guys out there that will do insane stuff to order, would love to know how they approach it from a sheer craft aspect
I found this article fascinating: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/magazine/celine-chanel-gucci-superfake-handbags.html
By Amy X. Wang and Grant Cornett
The New York Times
Inside the Delirious Rise of ‘Superfake’ Handbags (Published 2023)
Can you tell the difference between a $10,000 Chanel bag and a $200 knockoff? Almost nobody can, and it’s turning luxury fashion upside down.
its actually really easy to get 5/5 on the quiz on this- for all the hype they give superfakes in this thing every single one of them immediately looked off next to the real thing even as someone who's not a big baghead
imo the loewe one is the only one thats kinda hard and thats because it looked kinda fucked up in the photo
I‘m embarrassed to admit this but I was really into fakes when I was a teenager
Nowadays I think differently and gave most of the stuff away to friends who wanted it (telling them it was fake ofc)
BUT I still carry around my fake Chanel boy bag I bought in Egypt in 2019 just bc it‘s a nice quality black leather bag in a reasonable size 😭
So if you ever see me carrying that please know I do not own a 7k designer bag💀
Yeah imo if you know anything about what quality products in that price range are supposed to look like you can just tell when something‘s a fake, it just looks a little off
It's a good article. They definitely aren't using the best examples of fakes in that quiz though!
Parr if the issue is the quality of 'luxury' has gotten so bad it's far easier to fake anyway.
icl I really like the lemaire wrap coat but its so damn expensive I know you have fakes of it on ebay but I dont think I will bother as I dont think its fair ripping off the designer like that. tbh I might just try and make it instead and I dont think thats as bad tbh
I don't chase stuff expensive enough to justify getting fakes
I'd rather get secondhand
@nowhereface You aren't alone. When I was a teenager I bought a fake Rolex from a guy selling watches out of a suitcase under a bridge on a school trip to NYC. Rationale to my teenage brain was that a fake watch bought from a dude under a bridge was a far more authentically NY souvenir than the empire State building keychains and other crap most kids were buying.
I don't buy much secondhand but imagine the things that interest me are unlikely to be faked in the first place. Seems like a good defense.