I love the Birkin, but I don't like Hermès

a copy Birkin on offer in mainland China

Counterfeit bags are all over the news again because a local government representative for Chinatown in New York City has proposed a law which would make buying counterfeit goods illegal. Currently only selling is illegal.

I live in Hong Kong and just over our borders on the mainland there are entire villages devoted to selling fake goods of any description. The only ones that seems to be properly policed are the very high end goods like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Hermès. Pretty much everything else is sold right out in the open. Balenciaga is everywhere, as is Tory Burch, Goyard, and many others who do not seem to have the clout with the Chinese government that the big three have.

I have the sense that among Westerners the only prize worth hunting for is Hermès. And Birkins are high on the wish list. I am not the slightest bit surprised. When you go into an Hermès store with your best Sunday outfit and you ask the employee in front of you with your warmest smile whether you could get on the list to buy a Birkin, you will inevitably be told "the list is closed". Believe me, I have tried. Last year my husband bought me a silver bracelet at Hermès, I was there with him and asked again....  And the answer of course was "no". They exist, they are handed out to Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney Kardashian like there's no tomorrow but I cannot buy one with all the good will in the world. And then a friend tells me that she constantly gets emails from a posh concierge service with lists and lists of available Birkins at Hermès. That makes me want to take a train to Shenzhen right now.

The contention that only a French craftsman could make such a work of art is pathetic. As early as 1997 I saw amazing handbag samples coming from factories in Taiwan. And with China's cultural heritage it's clear the arts are highly valued here. Unfortunately the government in China does not protect its workers like European governments do, particularly in illegal businesses, but there are fabulously talented workers in China, and what's worse for France is that there are probably millions of them.

According to this article on www.yatzer.com, an Hermès craftsman makes 2 bags a week. Let's say he makes a net salary of 2,400 Euro per month. If he makes 8 bags that month, each bag costs 300 Euro in labor. Let's add 200 Euro for materials and 100 per bag for overhead and all the PR bags for the likes of the Kardashians. I am just making it up as I go along, but what's fairly obvious even without accurate numbers is that the mark-up on these products is pretty extraordinary.

Would counterfeiting stop if Hermès readily sold its bags to nice willing customers like me at a fair price? No, I don't think it would. But they would certainly sell more bags and cut out the shady second hand market in Birkins. And then when Hermès would go whining to the newspapers about the fakes, I might actually have sympathy for them.