FAKES

Press, 27 July 1988, Page 12

FAKES

IT’S 4 a.m. in Varese, a northern Italian town. Two shady-looking characters walk towards a particular dustbin outside a factory.

This is the evidence they need to alert the authorities. But more often than not, raids result only in a few pov-erty-stricken teenagers losing their jobs. The bosses of the factory move fast, and the proof — in this case fake Lacoste T-shirts — is destroyed. Cheap labour is easy to find, and within a month or two, the bosses will have set up again. Fakes are big business. In the label-obsessed Eighties, a form of conspicuous wealth is available for those who can’t afford the real thing. Children of 10 demand Nike for their feet and Lacoste for their chests, and watches with fake Rolex and Cartier stamps can be bought in markets from Bangkok and Singapore to France and Britain. The International Chamber of Commerce now believes that goods that “fall from the back of a lorry” amount to between 3 and 5 per cent of world trade, worth about $BO billion. Nothing, from “Nescafe” coffee to “Renault” car parts, is sacred. Cartier, the company with the most faked watch, spend over US$5 million a year trying to prosecute counterfeiters. Having perforce become experts in the subject, Cartier have ironically put on an exhibition in Paris entitled “Real Fakes” that presents the facts and techniques of forgery, counterfeits, imitations, replicas, pastiche and other forgers’ practices throughout history. As the exhibition demonstrates, Chanel is another favourite with the fakers. The company is particularly vulnerable when it comes to smell. Counterfeit Chanel perfumes have been called everything under the sun: Shinarl No. 15, Canal 15, Con Cord Channel, A la

They are disguised as tramps, but their salaries are paid by luxury goods companies which are vulnerable to counterfeiters, organisations like Cartier, Louis Vuitton and Rolex. This morning they are tracking down fakes for Lacoste, . the sportswear manufacturers with the embroidered croc logo. While one keeps watch, the other lifts the lid and rummages around the dustbin. The proof, after months of investigation, is lying at the bottom; thousands of tiny green crocodiles.

Spot the fakes: from the top, the scarf, £5 ($l5) is inspired by the Hermes original, £95 ($285); T-shirt fake, £lO ($30); gold and pearl chain £2O ($6O) influenced by Chanel’s jewellery, starts from £5O ($150). On the left: fake Gucci watch, SUS2S ($37) and fake Cartier tank watch, SUS3O ($45) from a New York street trader; fake silver and gold Cartier lady’s watch, £45 ($135) from an Italian market. On the right: real Le Must de Cartier gold plate watch, £525 ($1575); real Rolex Oyster steel watch, from £834 ($2502); steel and gold Santos watch, £llBO ($3540). The model holds a pair of RayBan inspired sunglasses, £4 ($12); the real McCoy are tucked into her jeans, £49 ($147). Threaded through jeans, real Levi 501 s, £35 ($105) is an original Hermes print scarf: two fake Rolex Oyster watches, SUS4O ($6O). Fake nails, £3 ($9).

No. 19 de Chanel. Yves Saint Laurent is also a label twisted once it falls into the hands of the counterfeiters. YEL is the signature on silk ties from Taiwan; JnesSaintLaurents features on the soles of shoes from Asia. Fakes of YSL’s “Poison” scent in the familiar purple and green packaging is renamed “Fatal” and “Arsenic.”

Counterfeit Ray-Ban Wayfarers can be bought for SUSS on the streets of New York; the real thing costs between £45 and £129. This year Bausch and Lomb, owners of RayBan, revived another sun-

glass style from the Fifties — the Signet. However, they placed an embargo on pictures of their latest model until a week ago “in an attempt to stop copies appearing on the market before the genuine article.”

real McCoy — actionable — to stealing design ideas — difficult to prove — fakes are finding a new audience.

Last year two Japanese businessmen were sentenced to 18 months in prison for counterfeiting Ray-Bans. But the fakers and the businesses that distribute them continue to get fatter and richer. And while the companies who are copied try to iron out the difference between passing copies off as the

These are not punters deceived into thinking that the article was the genuine one, at £8 a bottle, but customers whose sense of humour has made oversized quilted handbags with the Chanel-type chain strap and forged Hermes Tshirts all the rage this summer.

They argue that they are pastiche, as ambiguous as Marcel Duchamp’s moustached Mona Lisa.