Le Prix: Shop & Chat with Real Authentication

 

This article is ridiculously timely as just the other day I was accused of carrying a fake Chanel bag. For real…a designer resale expert and fashion writer for LePrix who owns a fake? Bissh, please.

The facts: The bag is authentic—I purchased it at Saks Fifth Avenue. I just had it professionally cleaned so I can resell it. I was at the Maryland State Fair watching the horse races, not exactly a place I’d bring my fanciest bag to hang with the farm animals and farmers. So, I guess I need to get it authenticated before I sell it.
Of all the people who would be caught carrying a FAKE, it wouldn’t be me! Well, this morning I learned about Real Authentication and I immediately signed up because it’s obvious to me this bag—and maybe a few others—will need an extra level of protection and authentication before I’m accused of selling a fake.
What’s Real Authentication? It’s a designer authentication company that lets you authenticate and verify your item from anywhere, anytime…which means there’s an app! And since LePrix is one of the world’s top designer resale companies, it just makes sense for us to feature them in this month’s Shop & Chat.

Tell me about the founding of Real Authentication.
Real Authentication was founded by Anastacia Bouzeneris and Jenna Padilla. We met while working together as authenticators at another designer resale company and both realized there was a need in the industry for a quick, easy and reliable way to authenticate luxury goods, so we took a leap and launched Real Authentication!


How and why did you launch Real Authentication?
We’ve been authenticating in the secondary market for nearly a decade and we’ve held positions as Senior Authenticators for one of the industry’s top resellers. Because we’ve been in the industry for a long time, we’ve noticed the speed at which the designer resale industry has grown and become one of the primary ways of buying luxury goods. While we were working for various resellers in the industry, we’d witness clients struggle with reasons why their item was either deemed authentic or counterfeit. The clients were unable to find a quick, reliable and easy way to authenticate goods and find credible information surrounding authenticity in general. Even internally at our company, it was difficult to find a reliable source for authentication.
Real Authentication was born due to witnessing large companies and individual shoppers alike struggle through the same pain points of verifying authenticity.
Why are you so passionate about fighting counterfeits? 
Not only have we seen our clients get taken advantage of by scammers, but we’ve been burned too! There are few things more disturbing than being scammed and having zero recourse. We absolutely love and appreciate the craftsmanship and heritage behind the brands we service, but we are primarily motivated by finding justice for our clients and offering a reliable, non-biased source of regulation to the secondary market as a whole.
How do you authenticate?
We analyze everything—from the client information all the way down to the denier of a stitch. Not only do we have two highly-trained authentication experts who review every single order, but we also use technology that we created—Smart Database Scan—to crosscheck data within our system and identify any red flags. With the higher quality of the fakes today, you can never be too careful! We always recommend getting multiple opinions to verify authenticity though.
What are the most popular authentication requests that come your way? 
Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton will always be our most authenticated brands as they tend to be the most popular and in turn the most counterfeited. We see so much variety overall though, it is always exciting sifting through our admin panel.

What was your first luxury vintage purchase?  
Jenna: I’ll always remember what first spiked my interest in the secondary market…I came across a vintage Chanel Crystal Sautoir necklace for $100 and could tell immediately it was authentic and incredibly underpriced! I wore it for months and then tossed it on eBay to make a quick and massive profit. I was sold!
Anastacia: My journey into the secondhand market started in 1999 when I opened my eBay account. One of my first purchases was a vintage Louis Vuitton bag. It was well used, but new to me! To this day, I still have the bag as it’s a reminder of my journey right from the start.
To find out more about Real Authentication, click here.

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The RealReal Is Officially Consignment Queen

$173 Million later, the new funding comes just in time for the retailer to open its first store.

 

While it’s fair to say e-commerce has totally changed shopping — putting mall brands out of business and spawning a new category of fast fashion retailers on steroids — the luxury market has had a harder time breaking out online. High-end brands are notoriously uneasy about e-commerce for fear of eroding exclusivity, and sites like Amazon, Alibaba, and eBay, riddled with counterfeit goods, have not proven to be great business partners.

You can get your Louis Vuitton and Hermès another way though: The secondhand market has found a way to make luxury and online shopping work, and San Francisco-based site The Real Real is leading the sector. This morning, it confirmed it’s just closed on $50 million in funding from private equity firm Great Hill Partners. The startup’s largest amount of funding to date brings the total amount it’s raised to $173 million. The upcoming wad of cash will go toward expanding the business, which consists of more than 800 employees and three giant fulfillment centers, and a company spokesperson confirms The Real Real will eventually file for IPO, though there are no current plans in the works.

The Real Real remains the fastest-growing of the bunch; even the Kardashians and Saudi princesses use it.

The RealReal is one of many secondhand luxury shopping companies that have leveraged the ease of the internet and enticed shoppers to buy and sell luxury online (although not all have survived). But while sites like Tradesy, ThredUp, and Vestiaire Collective have cashed in on this previously untouched sweet spot, The Real Real remains the fastest-growing of the bunch; even the Kardashians and Saudi princesses use it. The site boasts five million users, has sold four million items to date, and is expected to surpass $500 million in revenue this year.

To Julie Wainwright, the company’s founder and CEO, the site’s success really boils down to trust — a major factor in both online and luxury shopping. Wainwright started The Real Real in 2011 during a time when the options for selling luxury were feeble.

“There was nothing out there that provided the level of service and trust that needed to be added to the equation,” Wainwright told Racked in an interview a few months ago. “eBay can say 90 percent of its products are legitimate, but then what about the other 10 percent? There were consignment stores, but the space was always limited, and most of them weren’t big enough to be sophisticated. I wanted to construct a business that gives you the best of the internet, and then fills in where the internet leaves holes on trust, authentication and service. We take off of the top of eBay and the bottom off Sotheby's.”

Part of the appeal of the startup is that it employs luxury buyers, art curators, gemologists, and watchmakers to authenticate product — not quite as high-end as shopping at Christie’s, but not quite a pawn shop either. The Real Real has employees who visit homes to evaluate product in every major city in the US, and perhaps most importantly, the site takes ownership of listed items, so shoppers can feel secure when splurging — and oh, are they splurging.

Listings have hit as high as six figures (while Wainwright wouldn’t confirm the average listing price, she has said that “Net-a-Porter[‘s] average basket is $430, and ours is bigger.”). These days, The Real Real is selling everything from clothing to art to furniture to diamonds, Wainwright told Racked that 25 percent of its customer base is men, which probably is a nod to the site’s robust list of watches and sneakers.

The icing on the cake here is that The Real Real sees itself as a player that’s bolstering the luxury sector, not preying off of it. In 2017, it is expected to pay almost $300 million to those who are selling on the site, and the company says this money will then be spent “back in the primary market, continuing the luxury lifecycle.” The company is also collecting data on luxury brands, and is currently in conversations about potential partnerships with brands like Louis Vuitton, according to TechCrunch. Wainwright told Racked a third of its customers are millennials, and The Real Real studies which brands are popular by age demographic.

The company is also collecting data on luxury brands, and is currently in conversations about potential partnerships with brands like Louis Vuitton.

“I’ve met with all the top brands and I tell them that I’m the gateway drug for their brands, and some are in trouble,” she told TechCrunch last month. “Dolce is in trouble. We pick it up from people over 40 [years of age] and sell it to people over 50. There’s a whole disconnect with its advertising and they know it. They aren’t reaching millennials at all. We can also predict trends... if you have Valentino Rockstuds, hand ’em over, because the party is over.”

As part of its ongoing growth strategy, The Real Real is getting into brick and mortar. Wainwright tells Racked she can envision opening a giant store of sorts in five years that’s dedicated to secondhand merch — “a superstore in a major metropolitan area that has one floor dedicated to women's fashion, one to men’s, one to home, and one for art.”

For now, The Real Real is executing its plans for store expansion on a more practical level: This winter, it will open a shop in New York City’s Soho neighborhood that will double as a valuation space and a store. Wainwright has said that the new store will have 100 Birkins on the wall and well, nothing can really top that. 

 

Things just got REAL... Celebrity Stylist Claims the 'REAL GUCCI' Graffiti Handbag was Copied

Sonique Saturday, from Los Angeles, who has made a name and following for herself within the fashion world with phrases like 'Fake Chanel' written upon designer bags. Saturday responded after social media fans noticed a similarity between her known work and a the new Fall Winter 2016 Gucci line.

The Gucci tote (above) featuring the slogan 'Real Gucci', was first seen on the catwalk during the 2016 Fall/Winter Milan Fashion Week show.  

Sonique Saturday has been creating artistic designs on designer handbags for four years giving them an edge with slogans including 'Fake Hermes' and 'You fake as this Birkin bag'

Saturday even had words for the Italian company "Run me my money Gucci, I'm excited to have my original ideas on your runway." Sharing this with her 3,800 followers via Twitter. 

Sonique's designs sell for up to $220 and while the Gucci bag is not yet on sale, the brand's accessories can cost thousands.  As seen below, Amber Rose is one of many who have purchased Saturday's exclusive designs. 

In the end, Saturday was thankful for the exposure from Gucci and the fashion world.  

What are your thoughts on this?  Should 'Gucci' recognize Saturday for her original designs?