The Lap of Luxury

Off topic but worthwhile:

Buying fake has high price – Toronto Star – Bernadette Morra – 4 July 08

`I think I am going to buy a fake bag,” someone said to me recently, as casually as if she were telling me she might try a new hairstyle. “Why spend all that money on the real thing?”

Oh, did she get an earful from me.

“Don’t you dare!” I snapped. I told her to read Dana Thomas’s book, Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, which outlines how counterfeiting has swelled from small potatoes to violent crime syndicates that also deal in narcotics, weapons, child prostitution, human trafficking and terrorism.

Thomas describes a sickening visit to Guangzhou, China, where much of the world’s counterfeits are made. She accompanied authorities on a raid where two dozen Chinese girls and boys, age 8 to 14, were found breathing in acrid glue fumes as they assembled fake leather goods.

Thomas also learned of a case in Thailand where authorities found child labourers under 10 whose legs had been broken, with the lower leg bound to the thigh bone, so they would never be able to run away. The children were making counterfeit bags.

Yet many consider fakes a cheap thrill and women hold “purse parties,” sipping champagne while they shop.