harbinger SHAWNEE MISSION EAST
ISSUE 7, DEC. 1, 2003
What’s Inside
W
• •
Mrs. Ogden recovers from heart surgery Sports and the college choice Get your car ready for winter
Annie Fuhrman
ant a Kate Spade purse for $30? How about a Prada bag for $20? If the deal seems too good to be true, that’s because it is. These fake products are available, affordable and also illegal.
Counterfeit purses are cheap, fashionable and popular despite their contraband status. The look-alikes are a bargain: for the students who carry them, it’s all
in the
BAG
They are everywhere in big cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Washington DC. Tables of fake purses and other counterfeit items line the streets of these big cities and are available in select small stores. While it may seem that the major supplies of these faux designer bags are in the bigger cities, fake purses are readily available in Kansas City too. The stores that sell the illegal merchandise are often off the beaten path and are selective with their customers, letting in only those with recommendation from previous customers and locking the doors behind them. Inside these stores are walls lined with “Coach” purses and “Gucci” bags. All of the purses are available for sale at a fraction of the designer prices. While owning counterfeit purses is not illegal, selling them is. The popular bags are illegal because of trademark infringement. The makers of the knockoffs steal the ideas and the logos from the companies that developed the products and made them popular. The designers are the big losers in this enterprise, losing money from sales of their bags to the fakes and watching their original designs and styles they paid to develop exploited by the knock offs. The Kate Spade Company alone loses an estimated 70 million dollars a year to the knockoffs. SM East is a place where the both worlds collide. Many original designer purses are available along with the fakes. Many students love the fact that the fake purses are available for sale. “I have three,” sophomore Emily Hennig said. “I love the fake ones! They are so awesome.” Fakes are in high supply and in high demand, as long as the bags look identical to the real thing. Senior Amy Abrams commented on the feeling she gets when people mistake her fake for an original. “When people are like, oh, is that real, and I say no, they are surprised because it looks real. If you can find a good fake purse that looks real, then it’s cool.” While some students are enjoying their fakes, others are enjoying the real thing, and feel resentful of the owners of the knockoffs. “When I see someone with the fake things, I’m not really mad, but I think it is just cooler to have the real thing,” sophomore Betsy Kennedy said. “I think if you can pay less for the real thing, then it’s pretty awesome,” sophomore Caitlin Brown said. The fake purses are popular with the people who want designer purses without designer prices.
WHICH IS WHICH?:
Designer companies are losing money on real bags (right) to illegal counterfeits (left). photos by Tierney Weed
counterfeit or couture?
how to distinguish
fake or real Kate Spade illegal expensive Coach leather or plastic designers cheap price authentic And look for... counterfeit differences what is real and what is not? behind counter legal expensive leather plastic labels designer fake or • Misspelleddifferences words like “Kade Spade” or is real LOGOS: In fakes, they could real Kate Spade illegal expensive Coach leather or plastic designers cheap price authentic counterfeit what “Drada” be sewn on crooked or contain and what is not? behind counter legal expensive leather plastic labels designer fake or real Kate•Spade illegal Mismatched stitchingexpensive Coach crooked, unevenly spaced letters • In is Coach purses, there is a counter serial numberlegal to or words or plastic designers cheap price authentic counterfeit differences what is real and what leather not? behind prove that they are original FABRIC:leather Counterfeitsplastic are made labels designer fake or real Kate Spade illegal expensive Coach leather or expensive plastic designers • And a less obvious one: on thecheap Burberryprice of pieces of leather or vinyl purses, the plaid is off-center authentic counterfeit “pleather” is used instead differences what is real and what is not? behind counter legal expensive leather plastic labels designer ZIPPERS: In real purses they’re metal, in fakes they’re plastic.