Monday, September 18, 2006

Tired of the authenticity police? (a rant)

I try to keep this blog light and fun and informational, as well as talking about bargains for those who can't afford the high end designer to die for bag. But I need to go on a little rant here, so if you just want light and fluffy, skip this.

Anyone who really, really gets into the handbag addiction, not only knows about great shops in their area, but also about the wonders (and blunders) of online shopping and auction sites. We know about the many forums and mailing lists for fellow handbag lovers, sometimes even down to a specific list or forum for your favorite brand. These discussions though have largely been taken over by certain vociferous contingent of "authenticity police" who shout down and beat down anyone who doesn't agree with them, and I think this is a shame, because it could be handled better than it is.

I don't know about others, but I am getting a little tired of the attitude of the fake purse cops on handbag forums. Before I go into my objections, let me state that I agree that producing replicas is illegal, so if anyone reads this, don't misconstrue what I have to say about the subject as saying it's ok.

However, I see so many people innocently post on various forums with questions about finding replicas that get torn to shreds immediately thereafter by some hyperventilating self-appointed authenticity expert about how terrible they are for even asking the question. These comments are then piled on thick as their various buddies post and post on top of the first insulting post sometimes eventually degrading to congratulating each other on what they have just done. This sort of thing just comes down to bad manners in my opinion. There is no need to be insulting to the poster who probably didn't realize that replicas were illegal or that it was such a big deal, much less insult their intelligence, morals, or fashion sense.

And that brings up another thing. These angry responders always assume that all the people who buy fakes know they are buying fakes, whether this is true or not. They assume all sorts of nefarious intent sometimes based on the most innocent of verbage. On one board, a poster made a comment on how she would never use such an obvious fake, and several posters chimed in about how that must mean she would use a fake that wasn't obvious and then got generally mean spirited about the whole thing. A dozen or so posts down someone made a comment to the effect that "ha, the original poster left." Well, of course she did! Her one little comment was twisted around and served back with scorn. I would have left the thread too.

I've seen some talk about how tired they are that people just don't read up and how they can't help being bitchy now because they are just so annoyed at having to explain again and again. To them I say, then don't. Let others that can be calm and polite about it respond instead. Perhaps it's time to take a step back from this issue, and even the forum, if it is getting one so worked up. It's just a handbag, darling, not world war, disease and hunger. Those are the things to get passionate about.

I also get tired of the excessive (and incorrect) hyperbole served up as fact in the designer fake argument. One of the first things you hear when bringing up the subject is how designer fakes are practically wholly responsible for the problem of child labor the world over. Firstly, the apparel industry as a whole contributes to child labor by outsourcing to third world countries just to make a few extra bucks on an already high priced item. Once or twice a year you hear the horror stories of some designer or manufacturer exposed for having their product made in Bangladesh or some other exotic country and doing an end run around labor standards that we hold such pride in here in the good old U S of A. Secondly, in point of fact, most designer fakes are made in huge manufacturing facilities, often in the same ones that manufacture the real product in the first place. Sure, sometimes there are the horror stories of some poor old man locked into an airless closet and forced to pee in a bucket while he attaches pretty little metal triangles to fake Prada bags. But this is actually atypical of how it really works. These are tightly run businesses in foreign countries without the resources to crack down on something like a replica factory. Some countries have their hands full just keeping their murder rate below 5% a year.

In point of fact, that argument could be turned around to say that replica manufacture actually helps support women's rights. What? you say. When my husband and I were on a long car ride we were listening to XMPR when they had a really interesting and detailed piece about women in rural China trying to break out of old, stultifying traditions and were moving in droves to the city to get educations or jobs. Of the many places they got starting jobs were with the manufacturers in the cities, and one part of the story even extensively detailed the story of one woman who specifically worked in a facility that made designer and replica handbags. Like many, it was to prove to be a start for her and she eventually earned enough to go to secretarial school and move up and out into the world. As a feminist, I applauded her drive to be as much as she could be in a society that traditionally thinks women should marry and stay home to raise children. I recently responded to a post that got a little too pushy about the child labor thing and I told this story trying to logically get the poster to see that the issue is not so cut and dried. I hesitantly returned to the forum the following morning, bracing myself for a load of criticism which I was sure would follow. Instead, I found the thread completely deleted, whether for daring to post my own contrary view or for the flaming that followed I will never know.

Another argument faithfully trotted out is how buying a designer fake supports terrorism. This seems to come from an analysis of the funding for the 9/11 terrorists where it was stated that a small part of their monies came from counterfeiting. Now, the trail is pretty murky, so general counterfeiting could mean many things and is most probably linked to counterfeiting actual money, handbags have never been pinpointed as an actual origin, and probably never will be. But throwing out this argument is commonly done, and thereafter the person even thinking about or accidentally or intentionally buying a fake is practically treated with the scorn and horror of dealing with a child molestor and this is just plain silly.

Sometimes you hear that designer fakes contribute to drugs and other generalized crime, and in a vague way this is true. But the whole cycle of crime, drugs to counterfeiting to murder and back again, is so intricately intertwined that we simply cannot make such pinpoint statements about the issue. Crime contributes to other crimes and that is as detailed a statement as we should make.

The one issue where I agree is that this is an issue of copyright theft. When you blatantly steal a designer's entire handbag concept down to shape, size, look and even logo, you are stealing from that label. But even the economics of this issue are deceiving. First off, it's not like Marc Jacobs is not going to eat tonight because someone made a replica Venetia and sold it for 10% of the value of a real one. In point of fact, the single mom who bought that replica is probably never going to be in the market for the real deal, so you can't lose a sale you were never going to get in the first place. And how does this apply to the murkier concept of "designer inspired"? For instance, how far can you go copying a bag and simply leaving off a label or a signature mark? How is that a perfectly copied Coach Soho is okay simply because the maker used hard to distinguish G's instead of C's? This point just leaves me confused.

If we really want to fix this problem of designer replicas, we need to fix a much bigger issue and that is our insistance on judging people based on looks. We are negatively judgemental towards those that are heavier than us, or not wearing the latest "it" jeans, or carrying that hot handbag. Our focus on this superficiality is what drives this industry.

Look, I am writing a handbag blog so I can't say that I am innocent. I DO love handbags, but I wear designs because I think they are fun or functional, because they make me feel good, not because I am trying to impress someone. But until we get over our obsession with beauty, the replica industry is here to stay.

Being mean spirited or snide to others in message boards or mailing lists is not going to fix that.

1 comment:

CoachChick said...

What a laugh riot. I used many of these same arguments (and in fact cut and pasted much of it) in trying to explain why I might come off as pro-replica but in fact I am just anti-rhetoric. What happened? That thread was deleted also. Why do I hear Jack Nicholson yelling, "You can't handle the truth!"