The plot continues to thicken as folks on TikTok try to understand whether their luxury goods really come from China. As we’ve already reported, Chinese manufacturers claimed on TikTok that products from luxury brands such as Hermès, Chanel, and Prada are made in China, with the brand labels added in Europe, and then priced our jacked up....and we mean really jacked up.
Tiktok had a field day with this, but plot twist...is it true? Maybe not.
This led to some design experts coming out to set the record straight and expose that some of these Chinese online manufacturers are trying to pass off their counterfeit items. Now, one popular leather specialist on Tiktok, Tanner Leatherstein, got his hands on a very convincing counterfeit Hermès bag, and his deconstruction of it could help you to understand why the counterfeit bag isn’t exactly luxury.
Leatherstein, who is “committed to helping people understand and utilize leather better,” is something of a leather genius. He creates videos deconstructing the leather products of high-end brands, helping his viewers to understand why a product is considered a luxury, and his been featured in The Financial Times, Dazed and Buzzfeed, according to his website. He’s given. brands like Coach great reviews but other luxury brands ....not so much.
In his recent Tiktok video, he confesses that the fake bag sent to him was pretty darn good. For instance, the quality of the leather, the stitching and the craftsmanship stamp at first glance were all impressive, so what made the bag fake? Here’s the tea:
Saddle Stitching:
At first glance, the stitching does a good job of mimicking the stitching on the real luxury bags, but take a closer look, and the inner lining is sloppy craftsmanship.
The Wrong Kind Of Leather:
The leather of the fake bag looks like the goat skin leather of a Hèrmes bag to the untrained eye. However, the manufacturers used loose belly leather, which is more cost-efficient but not very Hèrmes.
Cheap Hardware:
The hardware on the bags was cheap and easily scratched, and the bag also used screw-ins for the feet, which Hèrmes does not do.
While Leatherstein admits that the bag is still high quality, even for a counterfeit, it does not make it a Hèrmes bag. Instead, the admirable craftsmanship and the quality make it a very very convincing replica of the luxury bag.