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Let's knock off the knockoffs

By Brad Webber (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-18 07:45

Despite a recent renovation that was vaunted as a drive to rid the Silk Market of bogus Burberry and ersatz Emporio, Louis the V's counterfeit cousins still reign.

Sorry to snitch, Abercrombie & Fitch, but the market is as true as ever to its roots as a pirate's cove with a trove of designer fakes. Little surprise there.

I jumped into the belly of this beast, known locally as Xiushui, on a fine Saturday to check whether the Beijing authorities' crackdown was just another whack-a-mole exercise.

As I shuffled along the crowded basement aisles, sellers upbraided skinflints with "My boss, he gonna kill me" because of their low, low bids and, "Your wife, she needs a Gucci purse!" The omnipresent Paul Frank monkey, with its leering mug, gazed up from row after row of sneakers, and as I stalled in the human gridlock a vendor latched onto my thumb. I was reeled in as if I were a prize blue marlin.

Despite my entreaties of "No, thanks!" the vise grip was locked. I looked down and noticed the object of my search, though: a single, forlorn wallet with the precise, distinctive Louis Vuitton pattern.

Intuitively, the seller handed over a 72-page catalog. Showing that the clampdown is limited to the display of LV bags, not their sales, vendors in the adjacent stalls immediately began waving their own catalogs, too. The glossy pages were filled with all things Louis - assuming the preferred Louis comes in the eau de formaldehyde of the sample wallet.

I'm surprised the acrid smell of plastic, rubber and all sorts of unnatural materials didn't turn off bargain-savvy shoppers. Now, sheer numbers would dictate Xiushui couldn't survive solely on sales to foreigners, and Chinese buyers were out in force, too. No doubt many of them see the Western visitors' enthusiasm as an endorsement, of sorts, for the goods.

Some of these foreigners wouldn't hesitate to plunk down $7 for a box of corn flakes at Jenny Lou's, but here they demand a deal, and they get it.

The prices are too good to be true, they reason, so why not load up a "Swiss Army" suitcase with product?

I do not admire the prices, let alone the quality of the merchandise. The adage that you get what you pay for rings true, but at the Silk Street I submit you generally get far less than you pay for. And set aside the fallacy that some of the goods are produced from ghost shifts at the brands' factories; if it were true you'd be a party to theft.

Ethics of trademark infringement aside, let's sing the praises of the real deals - the Paul Smith shirts in supple natural fibers, the Lacoste polo shirts whose colors don't fade after one washing. Do not forget the TaylorMade golf clubs whose heads remain attached after the swing.

I didn't always think this way, though.

Xiushui is not alone among the world bazaars brimming with knockoffs. My travelogue begins in 1996, when I bought a soft leather "Coach" purse with its very own serial number stamped inside. It was a gift for my wife, a Tijuana souvenir, that turned rainwater blue thanks to its unique Mexican dye job. Contrast that to my authentic and durable Coach briefcase, as black as it was in 1990.

I didn't learn my lesson, though. So, on to Bangkok, where I was smitten with a "Hong Kong" Rolex - sweeping secondhand, not the ticking movement of quartz.

I didn't feel the $25 being sucked out of my wallet until the flight home, when that suave timepiece clocked out for good. My very real, but lower-end, stainless steel Rolex is 21 years old and counting. A watch dealer offered to buy it for roughly the same price I paid for it.

Wouldn't it be better if China's enterprising entrepreneurs - I will attest to the customer orientation that can be found in the knockoff shops - spend their boundless energy dreaming up original products, with their own distinctive patterns and styles, at those low, low prices, or at least a midlevel price point that accounted for better quality?

Sure, a few tourists might be disappointed, but they'd have money left in their wallets to buy the excellent and unique traditional handicrafts produced by true artisans.

After all, there's nothing like the real thing.