Once
upon a time, counterfeit designer goods were a fashion no-go. Buying a
fake piece of clothing or accessory was associated with a try-hard
attitude and an empty pocket. Take, for example, Sex and the City’s “Sex and Another City” episode, in which Samantha Jones bought a knockoff Fendi bag from the trunk of a car.
After showing it off to her friends, she noted, “You’d never know it
wasn’t real Fendi unless you look inside at the lining.” Later on,
Samantha’s dirty little $150 made-in-China secret was found out publicly
at a party—a small price to pay for long-lasting embarrassment.
But
times have changed. Recently, some of the most influential runway
designers have created cringe-worthy, definitely-not-real clothes and
accessories—a far cry from Samantha’s trunk-plucked Fendi, inspired by
the more modern appeal of bootleg fashion. Alessandro Michele showed Fake Gucci T-shirts loudly emblazoned with the label’s logo for Resort 2017,
a design based on counterfeits that were popular on the streets during
the ’80s. The brand’s Resort 2018 collection continued with the theme of
through-the-looking-glass bootleg culture: A coat with
Gucci-monogrammed sleeves became the meme heard round the Internet after
it drew comparisons to a similar topper by Harlem-based designer Dapper
Dan, the original kingpin of DIY luxury bootlegs, who created a Louis Vuitton monogrammed coat for Olympic medalist Diane Dixon in the ’80s. There were also shirts that read Guccy—reflecting a trend at bargain bazaars, where misspelled names (deliberate or otherwise) are on every corner.
Before
Gucci’s foray into faux fakes, there was, of course, Vetements, which
turned the concept of fake fashion on its head and shilled “real fakes”
to the mass market. In October 2016, the brand held an “official fake”
garage sale outside Seoul, where off-kilter remakes of iconic pieces
nodded cleverly to the proliferation of Vetements bootlegs in that city.
Since Vetements, like Gucci, has become one of the most copied labels
in the world, the strategy makes sense: If you can’t beat the copycats
to the punch, then join them for a higher price tag. The approach seems
to be working. Those Fake Gucci T-shirts have sold out both at Selfridges and Farfetch.
I
recently returned from Tbilisi, Georgia, with hoards of thick plastic
“Chinatown” bags printed with the double-C Chanel logo (with the house’s
name written as “Ceanhl”) and other totes combining Louis Vuitton’s
classic Damier monogram with Gucci monogrammed tabs. The cheap carryalls
may be considered the bane of luxury—they are scathingly, shamelessly
fake—but there’s also a cheeky charm that comes with proudly sporting
something so obviously not real. My colleagues seemed to agree with this
line of thinking: The totes were a hit at the office. “It’s a
so-bad-it’s-good thing,” said Vogue’s
Fashion News Director, Chioma Nnadi, the recipient of one of the bags.
“There’s nothing subtle about the fakeness of it. It’s like no-shame
fake.”
On a smaller scale, there is the rise of millennial bootleg artists. Designer Ava Nirui of @avanope has built a career out of embroidering Gucci onto Champion hoodies and merging Carhartt with the Chanel name. Imran Moosvi, aka @imran_potato,
uses the Louis Vuitton and Gucci monograms in almost
everything—splicing them into Nike zip-up hoodies or creating natty ties
from them. “For me personally, fake stuff is more fun,” he says.
“There’s more freedom to do whatever you want with it. I think the
stigma associated with something being bootleg or fake is starting to
disappear a little bit, because at the end of the day, people just want
to see a cool product.”
But
does the trend have legs? “I don’t think this design culture has
longevity, because people will always find a way to overdo and ruin,”
Moosvi says. After all, is there really fun in spending top dollar for
an item that mimics a fake $15 one? Luxury consumers so far seem not to
mind; it remains to be seen whether Guccy will have the same effect. Until then, maybe it’s more real to stick with the fake deal.
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