The real cost of luxury counterfeits
In the past, few people boasted of owning fakes, because it showed their low purchasing power and class complexes. Now this appreciation has changed and the value of authenticity and quality has diminished in favour of showing off one's expertise when it comes to getting a good bargain. Luxury is a living space in which class tensions are palpable. The evidence of wealth as a strategy of distinction of the powerful has made the less privileged want to enter this bastion as a supposed transgression of the established order. A struggle that causes the limits and meanings of luxury to be continually rewritten, as is currently happening with one of its most iconic symbols: the Birkin bag by Hermès.
This bag, with a name derived from Jane Birkin, in addition to having a cost that ranges between 10,000 and 450,000 euros that keeps it out of the pockets of most mortals, has a sales system that makes it even more exclusive and desirable. If you want one you will have to sign up for a waiting list of years that does not guarantee you will end up with one. Birkin can never be the first item you buy from the firm, since you will have to have spent the equivalent amount of money on the bag with other products before becoming a customer. VIPAnd finally, it is important to maintain a good relationship with the house staff, who will be the ones who will consider you (or not) a worthy Birkin contender.
The latest news about this bag, which has shocked the sector, is that Walmart, the American chain of hypermarkets with very cheap products, has put a very carefully made counterfeit on sale for just 78 dollars. Dubbed Wirkin on the networks, it has sold out quickly, encouraged by the fact that if before people had qualms about buying counterfeits, the fact that this one comes from a supermarket has whitewashed and legitimised an activity that is still criminal. As a result, Wirkin (and future ones to come) is shaking the rules of luxury, by threatening one of its backbones, elitism, and by devaluing one of the most exclusive bags.
Generation Z, which has not stopped encountering economic crises and inflation that have reduced its purchasing power, identifies with ostentatious and expansive luxury rather than with a more intimate option based on quality and tradition. And while counterfeits have improved quality, luxury is suffering a crisis and discredit after it came to light that, in several cases, luxury products do not have the quality or ethics that we had been led to believe. A fact that does not justify the fact that, since the pandemic, luxury has increased its prices by an average of 54%, which makes one think more of pure speculation.
There are different ways of understanding the purchase of counterfeits. Some consider that they are hacking the social order, while others simply understand that it is nothing more than a clear alliance with the unleashed capitalist system. It is true that betting on counterfeits is not a good idea, because behind this sector there is a complex network in many cases related to human smuggling. But what is also true is that luxury must also review its practices and stop pushing the limits so much when it comes to polarizing class inequalities.
