How to Tell if your Designer Vintage Clothing is Counterfeit
How to Tell if your Designer Vintage Clothing is Counterfeit
When purchasing vintage clothing, there are several things you need to be mindful of. Whilst most of the time, picking up a designer piece with a bit or heritage is a win win for everyone (it gets a new lease of life and you get to wear your favourite brands for a fraction of the price), there is a risk that the item could be counterfeit.
Mistakes can be made by retailers (but not us!) unintentionally, others can purposefully be deceitful in order to make money; we don’t want this to happen to anyone. Not only do we believe that it’s vital for you to be able to tell the difference so that you don’t get ripped off, but also so that counterfeit sellers can be called out whether the sell is intentional or not.
To give you some examples of how to spot counterfeit products of some of some of ours and your favourite brands, we’ve put together some info on how to identify a counterfeit designer item:
- Genuine Lacoste polo shirts have only two holes in their buttons
- Buttons on Lacoste shirts are sewn vertically
- Buttons are real Mother of Pearl and so will all have distinctive and unique patterns
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Sizes will be in numbers and have two tags: the size and where it is from
- The label on the inside of the collar will have neat stitching with a clear space between ‘Ralph’ and ‘Lauren’
- Fake polos have little to no gap between ‘Ralph’ and ‘Lauren’ and the stitching is too close to the polo box
- Check the RL polo player logo carefully. The rider should be identifiable from the horse with distinctive reins, ears and tail
- Real Ralph Lauren polos traditionally only have two buttons which are pearl and cross stitched
- They will have a branded collar label. Check for spelling errors and that the font is consistent with genuine products
- Fake Adidas shoes often have a small triangular bit of material where the upper leather meets the second layer of leather on the heel of the toe
- Real Adidas shoes are known for having meticulous detail so check the product’s stitching. Real Adidas will have tight stitching which is evenly spaced whereas counterfeit Adidas might have loose stitching or wonky stitching
- Adidas jackets have a fixed inside label that will have the company logo on it, the size and country of manufacture. Styles will differ in different model and year but all should have these
- Check the size, print quality, distance apart and font of label design
- When looking at the company logo of any Adidas product, the top corner of the letter ‘d’, should be meticulously aligned with the first square of the logo
- The letter ‘i’ should stick out into the second square of the logo
- Fake Calvin Klein products can often be incorrectly sized
- The stitching may not be be to the same standard as an original. On a genuine CK item, the stitching will be tight and the finishes professional
- The ‘e’ in ‘Klein’ is often distorted on counterfeit items; it should be a semi-circle
- Original Calvin Klein shirts have two fixed labels inside which show the main label, company logo and then the model of the shirt
- The letters C and A should be connected on a label and the stitching on the side of the label should be clean and straight
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The logo on CK products will be clear, clean and without any extra material
- Buttons and rivets will be of interior quality to try and create the desired ‘lived in’ look
- Nearly all fakes will have ‘501’ stamped off centre or will not have it at all
- Whilst some non-vintage but still authentic 501s may still have this stamped on them, the vintage bit ‘E’ will have either a single digit or letter stamped or blank. If it is blank, you can quite often find punch marks on it
- There can be an elongated ‘V-Stitch’ on the fly
- Check out the rear patch on the right hip which can also be a give away
- When feeling the material, if it feels hard or like leather, the jeans are likely fake unless they’re from the 1930s and the patch as a somewhat jerky look. Very few other Levi’s had/have a real leather-like patch
- The printing on this patch can often be off centre with spelling mistakes with counterfeit
