It’s been a lot of head scratching on social media – ranging from “I guess that makes sense” to “I’m calling the police.” But this declaration is one of the most heinous I have ever seen. A fan of NFT wrote on Twitter, “You date a guy who wears fake sneakers, and you expect him to be real. How can he be real with you if he can’t be real with himself?”
It makes sense to me. It may be ironic, but let’s assume for a moment that they are dead serious. It is out of pocket in the era of social media “reality.” Buying counterfeit clothes has nothing to do with a person’s value, disposable income, or willingness to spend.
Wearing fake designer gear can be stigmatized as a form of classism. There are times when it is done with a sense of humor, like when a counterfeit is so shoddily done that comments are impossible to avoid, but that is more about aesthetics than morals. Is it really justified to pay overinflated prices for a brand’s official stamp of approval when knockoffs are becoming more convincing?
It is not as taboo as you might think to buy replica sneakers.
It’s possible some of you are already storming toward the comments section to lecture me on why counterfeits are terrible and defending them makes me a terrible person, but honestly: who cares?
There is no denying that fake goods are inferior to their real counterparts: a replica Saint Laurent leather jacket mass-produced in China cannot compare with one made in Paris, but they are made differently. Do they really differ if they’re both mass produced?
Despite tiny engravings of the brand’s name on pieces of metal on the arm hinge, my snide Céline sunglasses look authentic.
The lenses are too dark and of questionable quality, but they can be changed. Injection-molded plastic makes up the rest of the body. That can be produced by anyone with the right equipment. Even though there are different qualities of plastic with different finishes, they are still plastic, and only a pedant can tell them apart.
Even after two and a half years, they have worn out a bit, but I can’t complain since I paid less than a third of the original retail price.
Whoever gets high and mighty about people wearing fake sneakers needs to reevaluate their priorities. I am referring to the imbecilic tweet at the top of this article.
What are the benefits of buying replica shoes?
All of my current footwear rotation is made in south-east Asia, most likely in sweatshops with child labor.
Western world conditions are not much different from Eastern world conditions. It is reported by the New York Times that Chinese-owned factories are found in Tuscany, the Italian garment capital, where Chinese workers manufacture low-cost clothes, shoes, and accessories at 3,200 businesses around the clock. It is often manufactured with materials imported from China and sold at mid-price and low-price retailers worldwide. For a product to qualify for the “Made in Italy” label, it needs to be planned, packaged, and manufactured in Italy, but that no longer means what it used to.
I’ve worn my Air Max 97s sporadically for a few months, but they’re already straining, so they can’t be considered high-quality, artisanal products.
Considering that counterfeits are often made under similar circumstances and sometimes even in the same factories, I can’t imagine how they could be worse. Collectors of replica sneakers quoted in this Complex article believe that brands like Nike or adidas contract a factory to produce a certain number of sneakers.
The factory still has the pattern despite running out of materials. Apparently, the factory contracts with counterfeit buyers to produce an unauthorized run of the sneaker.
As far as I can tell, I haven’t found any evidence that supports or contradicts this explanation, although I haven’t found anything that contradicts it either.
The New York Times reported several years ago, however, that counterfeits are usually made either by disassembling and reverse engineering an original pair, which obviously results in mixed results, or by simply bribing factories that brands have commissioned to make their stock to provide blueprints and samples.
As a result, the only difference is in the materials, leaving the designs indistinguishable. Considering that 60 percent of chemical and synthetic fibers are manufactured in China, counterfeiters may have easy access to the same or similar sources brands do. So, once again, it’s basically the same, and scrolling through countless Instagram accounts that compare and contrast legit sneakers with snide sneakers, it’s hard to see the differences.
Only 64 percent of Hypebeast employees correctly identified whether a pair of sneakers was legit in a video test.
Considering all of this, I can’t see any reason to ever buy original sneakers again. When you buy from Nike or adidas, you are paying for imagined value and a sense of prestige that only exists in your head when you buy directly from them. According to consumer capitalism, what we buy reflects what we win (or lose) in life.
It is widely believed that this is the case, but it is subjective, and I tend to believe that it is completely untrue. A marketing Ponzi scheme abetted by willful ignorance fattens brands’ bank accounts.
I understand that counterfeiting violates intellectual property rights, constitutes theft, etc., but I find it hard to sympathize with companies that use cheap, exploitative labor to maximize profits. Global conglomerates don’t seem to care much about the human cost of their business practices.
Nike, for example, generates more revenue than all five top-tier European football leagues combined despite the trickery of the counterfeiting industry. The key word is combined here. Since fakes have more money than they need, deserve, or can justify, I feel no guilt about supporting them.
It is also convenient for brands to ignore their own role in encouraging counterfeiting. Consumption actively manufactures desire through advertising. Marketers use mental triggers to make us lust after a brand’s products. You are still exposed to consumeristic stimuli even if you don’t earn a lot of money, through both marketing and the shared values of a society that values spending and consumption. In this way, the poor are still conditioned to have that desire, but lack the means to achieve it.
It is fundamentally this that creates the counterfeit market. Supreme’s strategy of creating limited stock to increase exclusivity also plays a role: people who can’t afford the real thing are forced to buy knockoffs because they can’t afford retail. Those brands adored so much that they become targets for counterfeiters have brought it on themselves – don’t cry over them.
The most common fake sneakers authenticators catch are listed below.
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