High prices make us fake

A lovely chap from LVMH in Brazil came out to South Africa to scout for locations and he even met me to ask my advice on the best city and shopping mall to consider for its first African boutique. Imagine!

He also told me about the fake- police who would ensure that every counterfeit Louis Vuitton bag for sale in South Africa would be taken off the streets.

I went home that evening and piled up every fake designer bag that I possessed and delivered them to my mother's door, asking her to dispose of them.

She and I had visited China a few years earlier and had come back with our fair share of copies, plus I had a smattering of flea market purchases. Mine is not an uncommon story.

I'll be honest. I wasn't dumping my counterfeit goods because my conscience was telling me to do so. I just knew that I would simply die of embarrassment if anyone from Vuitton spotted me carrying a fake.

And over the years, I've even sounded off in this column, discouraging the sale and purchase of fakes because the business is a huge threat to the fashion industry — and, after all, we should all say no to crime.

But a recent debate with friends reminded me why I bought those bags in the first place and why we can be pretty certain that the fake business will never, ever go away.

If a woman is never going to be in a position to buy a R7000 pair of denim jeans, what are the chances of her walking away from an opportunity to buy a pair for R500 that look absolutely identical to the real thing? She gets the fit, the style, the label and the happy feelings that we all know you get when you've acquired something you covet — and maybe just a small crisis of conscience.

For the person who finds it offensively extravagant to spend twice her domestic worker's monthly salary on a pair of jeans, the R500 pair is a distinctly attractive option.

I'm not for a minute advocating this behaviour. I haven't bought a single fake since the day Vuitton came ashore. But I can't say the stunning Mulberry copy at the Rosebank rooftop market hasn't tempted me.

You see, you can't buy Mulberry bags anywhere in South Africa and even if they were here, I wouldn't be able to afford one.

It's an impossible situation for the designer brands: as long as people covet their designs, there will always be those who cannot afford the real thing and therefore opt for the copy.

And there are an increasing number of people who find it distasteful to spend huge amounts of money on designer labels.

I'm starting to wonder if there is any way out of this conundrum. Any suggestions?

Source: The Times