Dude, where’s my purse?: ‘Rep demons’ gas wild west black market
Teen boys are supercharging a black market that’s bigger than drugs and human trafficking. James Weir yanks open the zipper.
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Kylian Fresier, 17, pulls the brim of his fake Fendi baseball cap low over his eyes and strides confidently down a dusty pathway past hundreds of luxury counterfeit handbag stallholders at Saint-Ouen flea markets in Paris, determined to locate a gentleman he promises sells “the best”.
The place is crawling with young lads – all proudly decked out in bogus Gucci satchels and phony Louis Vuitton anything.
Nothing else about the personal style of these boys – with their tracksuits, sneakers and mullets – screams luxury. But, for some reason, the desire to top it all off with a pretty purse or haute couture hat is overwhelming.
Global fashion shopping platform Lyst reports a spike in the luxury men’s accessories category, with searches for the Gucci stripe canvas belt bag that retails in stores for about $2000 soaring 756 per cent month-on-month. At the Saint-Ouen markets, Kylian walks past guys who are snapping up replicas of this satchel for as little as 30 euros.
Celebrity It-boys like pop star Harry Styles and Australian actor Jacob Elordi continue to make headlines every time they’re snapped by paparazzi wielding similar designer bags. Just this weekend, Elordi was photographed with a red suede Bottega Veneta Andiamo purse that retails for about $12,000 while sitting front row at the luxe Italian brand’s Milan Fashion Week show. By his side was rapper A$AP Rocky with the brand’s new Sardine bag, priced at around $7730.
It’s this jump in global popularity that concerns some counterfeit experts, who warn young blokes are supercharging an already booming black market, which the US Patent and Trade Office estimates is worth between $1.7 and $4.5 trillion in annual sales, making it the biggest criminal enterprise in the world – larger than drugs and human trafficking.
“The supply is big and the demand is even bigger,” says Dr Marian Makkar, luxury counterfeit expert and senior lecturer in marketing at RMIT University.
Kylian reaches a stall run by a middle-aged man in a hoodie. Fake designer hats are stacked high on racks with as much care and glamour as a wall of stuffed animal prizes at a suburban carnival.
The gents slap hands and Kylian thanks the man again for hooking him up with the Fendi hat he’s wearing – emblazoned with the luxury brand’s iconic brown and black monogrammed logo. He paid €30 ($49) for the accessory a month ago – a drastic markdown on the $910 price tag that’s attached to the authentic caps sold at approved stores.
“It’s exactly like the genuine ones,” he says.
This cap is one of many lookalike accessories Kylian has bought at these markets for a fraction of the cost.
“It’s a very harmful industry. Gen Z love sustainability and social justice but when it comes to fashion, they hit a wall,” says Dr Makkar, pointing to the surge of social media content about “dupes”, “reps” (replicas) and “superfakes”.
Australian TikTok personality Ben Giles, who goes by the handle @gillyreps, has built an audience of more than 348,000 followers on the video sharing platform with clips celebrating the counterfeit market. In one clip, he admits to spending more than $50,000 in a single year on dupe designer goods. He seems to have fashioned himself into an online Robin Hood – giving a taste of the first-class lifestyle to those far from it. Instead of a medieval-style green felt bycocket hat, he wears a backwards Gucci cap in his videos.
“What’s holding you back from buying your first fake product? Throughout high school, I wore the same pair of pants and I had a rotation of about two Champion shirts. And, no joke, reps saved my life,” he says in a recent video, addressing his online tribe of “rep demons”.
“God knows what I’d be wearing right now.”
A study published by City, University of London last month found counterfeit sales are spiking because Gen Z are wanting to achieve a sense of social equality. Dr Makkar says Gen Z don’t seem to care about the dangers associated with producing these superfakes, like abuse, human traffic and poor working conditions.
Many of the vendors at the Saint-Ouen market say they source their products from Vietnam, Hong Kong and China. A hip-hop song by Migos begins to blare over a nearby Bluetooth speaker.
Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace
King of Versace, Medusa my wifey
My car is Versace, tiger stripes on my Mazi
The young fellas in their fake Gucci hats nod their heads to the beat while perusing the wares on offer. All the stall owners are on edge and refuse to give their names. The sight of a camera sends some of them into a rage. It seems they’re still shaken from the police raid a few weeks ago that saw authorities swarm markets in the area and confiscate a reported 63,000 counterfeit items, including fake Nike shoes and Louis Vuitton bags. Officers shut down 11 stores and arrested 10 individuals, reported Reuters.
It was an attempt to clean up the streets before the city of love and luxury was put under the spotlight on the global stage with an estimated 11 million tourists arriving for the Olympics. After all, the style capital of the world couldn’t have its reputation tarnished by fashion fraudsters.
“We’ve been talking about the problem of counterfeits for the last two years,” Michel Lavaud, the police security chief for the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb, told local outlets about the bust.
But just weeks after the Olympics closing ceremony, more than 100 counterfeit sellers are back and hawking their wonky wares.
One stallholder, dressed in a fake Gucci cap with matching sunnies and purse, insists his merchandise is even better than the guy with the Fendi caps.
“The finest quality,” he declares, while lighting up a cigarette and exhaling the smoke over his stock.
The tan pleather brim on one of the Gucci hats dangling from the tent’s awning is already beginning to peel and flake. Genuine versions of the cap retail for $750. These fakes are being peddled for 30 euros. The stallholder says he can’t count how many he sells each day.
The bags splayed out on the rickety plastic table don’t have that gorgeous leather smell one imagines when buying luxury goods. If anything, these items reek of barbecued meats, thanks to the nearby kebab ‘n’ grill stall.
Like many of his competitors here, this stallholder says his main customers are young men.
“They love the fashion,” he says with a shrug.
Indeed, lads in 2024 have developed a taste for the finer things. A 15-minute drive up the road to the luxury retail strip on the Champs-Élysées, well-dressed blokes stroll the pavement, dashing in and out of Louis Vuitton and Hermes and Gucci boutiques.
Alice Feillard is the men’s buying director at Galeries Lafayette, an opulent department store on the historic strip, and says the designer accessories market for blokes is “booming”.
“For young customers, buying accessories such as caps, scarves and belts is a way to get access to a luxury brand,” she says. “We also notice that Gen Z acquires more spending power, which is very true in Asia for example, making sense for brands to target and recruit these young customers with more accessible yet fashionable categories.”
Outside the department store, professional French soccer player Tanguy Coulibaly, 23, is fresh from a shopping spree and has a pristine white and cream Goyard Belvédère PM bag strapped across his chest. It’s an eyebrow raising addition to the rest of his outfit – sweat-wicking Nike gym shorts and a grey marle T-shirt. The iconic patterned Goyard canvas that has practically become a badge of honour on the hip hop scene shimmers in the sunlight.
“I spent a lot,” Tanguy says of the handbag that can sell online for about $5500, a price tag that makes the Gucci bag worn by his nearby mate seem almost frugal.
Across the road, a group of young men line up outside the Louis Vuitton store. They look just as scrappy as the dudes at the counterfeit markets. The only difference, apparently, is the bank card in the back pocket of their baggy jeans.
Suddenly, Tanguy’s brother pulls up in a Bentley.
Young men want to look high-end, and some will do whatever it takes – even if they can’t afford the real deal. A Business of Fashion survey found the majority of Gen Z think it’s acceptable for people to purchase counterfeits, while 37 per cent said they’d happily wear fakes. A 2019 International Trademark Association study of 1,250 young people aged 18-23 across 10 different countries found 89 per cent had purchased counterfeit products in the past year while 55 per cent felt they couldn’t afford the lifestyle they wanted.
Back down at the Saint-Ouen flea markets, one accessory is whipping the boys up into a frenzy: The Gucci Neo Vintage Small Messenger Bag, with its instantly recognisable beige monogrammed canvas trimmed with tan leather and brass hardware. One stallholder has sold out. His model costs 80 euros – an eye-watering discount on the $2600 price tag that’s usually attached to the genuine item sold in authorised stores. Still too expensive for you? A competitor across the alleyway is easily haggled down to 30 euros. Coincidentally, Gucci sales fell 20 per cent in the first half of 2024.
Luxury counterfeit expert Dr Makkar says the dodginess of these fake designer products is part of the appeal.
“They’re proud to say it’s fake,” she says. “Just saying it’s a dupe or rep is cool now. Not realising the dangers these are having on the environment and on employees being used and abused in other countries to make these superfakes. There’s also (a sense) of feeling savvy – getting to tell their friends they got a superfake from a dingy market, that they found a bargain.”
She says a social psychology concept known as the trickle-round effect, where low status clashes with high luxury, seems to be coming back into play for Gen Z.
“The idea of wanting to look like those who can afford luxury – but admitting that it’s not luxury,” she says. “They adopt things that are associated with low fashion groups like counterfeit luxury, and then they’re able to gain more cultural capital to make this new superfake ideology the new luxury.”
At the Saint-Ouen market, a voice cuts through the air.
“Hey, cheap bag, cheap bag, cheap bag, cheap bag!” one stallholder yells through a megaphone.
A local teen named Maximilian, 17, is strolling through the markets with his dad after dropping 25 euros on a Gucci cap. His epic fringe swoops out from under the beige monogrammed brim.
“I also have a real one, but this one is fake,” he says. “I have a real Gucci bag. I spent 350 euros on it at the outlet.”
If he already owns real Gucci, why bother buying fakes?
“I cannot always pay full price,” he says.
Nearby, a young man named Khalil Junior, dressed in soccer merch, says he got his fake Gucci hat from “Internet Explorer”.
“We watch rap videos and they wear this,” he says of the hip hop stars he and his friends try to emulate.
Many of these young men say they trawl online forums like Reddit to find out which markets and internet suppliers have been shut down and where to bag the best bargain. Social media has seemingly become a wild west for counterfeit slingers. And just as one supplier is raided, another pops up, like a stylish yet affordable Whac-A-Mole.
Former Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force officer Rohan Pike tells news.com.au the supply and demand is simply impossible to control.
“Once past the border, you have a similar problem to tobacco where the police agencies are not interested and other relevant agencies do not have the resources, powers or determination to crack down on this illegal trade,” he says. “Another low risk, high profit crime.”
It leaves designer brands scrambling to stop the impact. LVMH, the luxury conglomerate behind Louis Vuitton and Fendi, reportedly entered discussions in January with social media app TikTok and parent company ByteDance Ltd. to fight counterfeit sales. The company employs about 60 lawyers and spends $17 million annually on anti-counterfeiting legal action, the Harvard Business Review reported in 2019.
Aussie TikToker Ben Giles describes himself as a “crippling rep addict” and keeps his followers up to date on the dramas with global suppliers like Sugargoo, Pandabuy and Taobao – online companies that act as buying “agents” between customers and sellers. In April, Chinese authorities raided the warehouses of Pandabuy and confiscated millions of allegedly counterfeit goods, The Guardian reported.
“What’s stopping you from buying reps? … Are you scared the public might realise you’re wearing some fake Balenci [Balenciaga], and you might get called out?” Mr Giles asked his followers in a recent video.
A TikTok spokesperson tells news.com.au the company does not allow “the trade or marketing of regulated, prohibited, or high-risk goods and services, including counterfeit goods”. After news.com.au’s enquiries regarding the videos of Mr Giles bragging to his near-250,000 followers about scoring counterfeits, the company “permanently banned” the account, effective immediately.
Hashtags like #dupes and #reps continue to flourish on the platform.
On our own shores, the Australian Border Force tells news.com.au it seized more than 3.2 million individual items with an estimated value of almost $45 million in the last financial year. More than 30,000 of those items were high-end luxury counterfeits worth an estimated $21 million.
“Influencers that promote this type of activity should think strongly about the messages they are promoting as there can be serious implications for consumers who buy these goods,” an ABF spokesperson says.
Former officer Mr Pike says the addition of illicit tobacco, vapes and other nicotine products to ABF responsibilities and the public outcry about health issues means counterfeit goods aren’t being prioritised.
Phony products continue to slip through and filter onto the streets at stalls around major Australian capital cities.
At Paddy’s Markets in Sydney, several stallholders openly sell bogus luxury items splashed with fake Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior logos.
On a recent weekend, a group of scruffy-looking high school boys circle around one of the booths, trying to spot a bargain.
One picks up a sham Louis Vuitton bag and asks the seller the price.
It’s $70.
The boy puts it back and walks away, shaking his head.
“Nah, bro,” he says. “Too much.”
Facebook: @hellojamesweir
Originally published as Dude, where’s my purse?: ‘Rep demons’ gas wild west black market
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