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Beijing knockoffs a booming business
After a couple of weeks of travelling in China, as I have just been fortunate enough to do, one could easily develop an identity crisis. Absolutely everywhere you go, from Shanghai to Beijing and Hong Kong, street hawkers eagerly run up and greet you with, "Hello, Louis Vuitton!", "Hello, Chanel!" as if somehow, simply by virtue of being a Western tourist,[url=http://www.holisteroutlet.cc]hollister pas cher[/url], you have actually become a global fashion brand.
Of course these street sellers don't really think you are Louis Vuitton or Coco Chanel, they just want to let you know in the most efficient way possible that they have the goods they think you are looking for. in Paris, and that those goods are designer knockoffs.
So plentiful are the "designer" handbags and belts and wallets and watches heaped on tables in every market and lane, and so gaily were our fellow Chinese tourists festooned with headtotoe Burberry plaids and Lacoste crocodiles, that after a while it seemed almost unsporting of us to spurn every offer. And so, despite the fact that I actually abhor logoencrusted goods, and would feel even more ridiculous carrying around fake versions of the same, one smoggy morning in Beijing we found ourselves at the Pearl Market in Beijing, or rather, in a secret building annex behind it built, as our genial guide Sophie explained, "for the Olympics."
The key, as my friend David, who goes to China regularly on business, told me was to keep asking for "the really good stuff."
"The first room you go into, that's where they have the basic crap you see everywhere," said David. "But if you insist on the really good stuff they will take you into a hidden back room or downstairs, and that's where they've got the stuff you actually might want."
This intel was confirmed when Sophie led us all the way through the Pearl market and up a rear elevator into a tiny back room where two women, one pregnant, were eating noodles and watching television. On one wall was a cheap wooden bookcase. Sophie said something (presumably "really good stuff" in Mandarin) and the pregnant woman got up and slid the bookcase aside to reveal another room. Unlike the previous room, this one was lit up like a boutique, with mirrored walls, glass cases and backlit shelves. And it was packed, floortoceiling with "Chanel" and "Vuitton" and "Prada" and "Hermes" bags and wallets and watches that at least at first glance were quite amazingly convincing.
Which is where it got complicated for me, at least. Does one really want a bag that says Prada on it that isn't actually Prada? If you are prepared to answer yes, then you are submitting to the idea that it's only real value lies in its logo. In China, where copying well is an ancient art form, and originality isn't applauded, the lines were blurred. But I wasn't sure that I was prepared to go there. Would I actually enjoy carrying an "Herms" bag if I knew it was a fake?
My son, however, wanted a big fat fancy watch, and after trying on a bunch of them settled on a "Patek Philippe" with a grand "gold" beveled rim. My daughter, who has trouble with designer bling, tried on some of the latest Vuitton and Prada for size, but finally settled on a very pretty logofree "Bottega Veneta" bag in the house's signature intreccio leather. And then, torn as I was, since I actually needed a new wallet, I decided I could justify a simple "Herms" version that seemed both discreet and serviceable. After some haggling, we finally settled on a price of $600, half of what the women had asked for. Two days later, I had bailed on the new wallet, which didn't fit all my stuff, and my son's watch wasn't keeping time.
Our trip wound up in Hong Kong, where our guide there, a lovely woman named Rebecca, told us how she had recently taken Dolce and Gabbana (the real ones Stefano Dolce and Domenico Gabbana) shopping for knockoffs. "A couple of the Dolce and Gabbana fakes were designs they hadn't seen before," said Rebecca. "They really liked them, so they bought them to take back to Italy to have them copied."