Comment by libraryofbabel

Knockoffs? please, we call them “reps” ;)

There are whole subreddits devoted to this, the most well-known being repladies, which went private after it got too famous due to an NYT article. People will spend $1000 or more for a really good Birkin knockoff with high quality leather and hardware. The bags are almost all made in workshops in China. Getting one is apparently (I haven’t done it myself) an interesting exercise in trust and reputation: how do you know the seller isn’t going to send you a cheap knockoff from China rather than a “real” $1000 knockoff? In practice there is a whole world of trusted Chinese middlemen with reviews etc. who have a strong stake in keeping their reputation high in the “reps” community (but you’d better make sure the reviews are real…).