The Local Artisan Guide is fortunate enough to be based in downtown Manhattan, in the neighborhood of Soho which has great energy, stores, restaurants and some of the best residences in New York City. Soho is also surrounded by hotels, where you see countless tourists everyday exploring all New York has to offer. Usually their country’s currency is good for shopping in the United States so they have researched ahead of time premier shopping destinations that will give them more bang for their buck (or Pound, Yen, Euro). Soho, Century 21, Nolita, Williamsburg are on their list for shopping and finding great bargains however unfortunately so is an area right next to Soho which is Chinatown.

Chinatown is a great destination in New York City to go to for delicious, affordable food, groceries, cultural shock and wares from Asia. However Chinatown is a destination for many tourist for all the wrong reasons.

Bus loads of tourists make their way to Canal Street and Chinatown every day in New York City to look for inexpensive souvenirs of NYC which are aplenty but even more notorious in this part of town is that Chinatown, especially Canal Street is the mecca for counterfeit products.

Handbags, luggage, watches, fragrances, sunglasses etc. are all counterfeit. They are copies of the most well known international brands in the world; Prada, Gucci, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Tumi, etc. Street hawkers will whisper to you as you go by to look at their wares, they will even invite you into backroom areas to see more high end product they swear are real. If you walk away they will start haggling with you to close the deal.

A view of the counterfeit shops that line Canal St. in Chinatown, NYC and their wares. Hopefully froggy is legitimate.

If you think for one second that the product is genuine or it doesn’t matter purchasing counterfeit products, let me remove all doubt and ignorance so you don’t even begin to justify that you are just getting a bargain or paying what you think is fair and the large multinational conglomerates will not miss a penny.

Counterfeit fragrances sold on Canal St., Chinatown, NYC.

The main bulk of the counterfeit products come from China. China is a master of illegally counterfeiting product. As most mass retailers have their products made in China, there is a culture of factories replicating and selling the products domestically and internationally at a dramatic cut cost in black markets across the world. Many so called reputable factories in China will produce legitimate products legally and near by have a sister factory producing the same stolen designs and intellectual property illegally.

Counterfeit handbags and watches sold on Canal St., Chinatown, NYC.

As a former product development manager who had to travel frequently to Asia to review the product I was developing, I saw whole shopping plazas in China with stores that were all counterfeit. I even once found a store in China that had the name of the brand I was working for even though we did not have a brick and mortar store in the United States. As I looked into the windows of the closed shop, I saw a mixture of our handbag designs and their own designs but with our leathers and fabric patterns. The shop actually looked quite nice and luxurious. However it was all counterfeit. There was a fake Donna Karan shop, fake Calvin Klein, fake Pucci, etc., etc..

Here is what you are contributing to when you buy counterfeit items; besides depriving well known brands of your money for their products, when you buy counterfeit you are contributing to child slavery, dangerous work conditions, poor salaries with workers that have little or no rights plus a multitude of other labor violations. You see, when a factory is illegal there is no regulation of any kind. It is a sweat shop where the government or social compliance auditors cannot oversee to make sure there is a safe, humane labor practice occurring.

Do not try to fool yourself for one minute that this is not the case no matter what the hawker will tell you. Unfair circumstances that we cannot imagine happening are occurring all over the world and when you buy counterfeit product you are not only contributing to it you are encouraging it.

Some of the counterfeit handbag brands sold on the street on Canal St., Chinatown, NYC.

All over the world there are areas like Canal St. that specialize in selling counterfeit items. Once while I was in Florence, Italy walking down one of the streets that legitimately sold the high end accessories brands of the world, I noticed right after the shops closed, immigrant hawkers came and laid out the same counterfeit bags that you saw in the store windows on the ground and for a fraction of their retail cost. It was very bold. Yet still counterfeit.

There are even seemingly nice, legitimate stores in Soho that have a mix of genuine vintage high end handbags and what they claim are an overstock of “it bags”. These bags are very easy to fool even a trained eye. They have quality raw materials, follow the designs of “it bags” and copy the packaging of the bags to the tee. They even have the cards with the certification copied down expertly. If you see a vintage Chanel that you are quite sure is legitimate, why wouldn’t you think the Celine bag that is just a few feet away, still in new condition not real? Be warned these bags are not $100, they are sold for over $1000 and more as they are claiming the product is new or overstock. Remember if its too good to be true, it usually is.

Police raids on vendors selling counterfeit product on Canal St., Chinatown, NYC.

There are frequent raids on Canal St., but the norm is to see sellers are out in the open hawking their wares which makes a tourist think that this is quite legal. However you as the shopper can also get in trouble for obtaining illegal counterfeit product so is it really worth it? Some countries in Europe will give you a ridiculously high fine if they catch you with counterfeit product when you come into customs. If you have any questions on whether a product is counterfeit or not, you can call customer service of the brand you are questioning or Google as there are many articles and sites that teach you how to determine if a product is legitimate or not and how to avoid counterfeits.

So whether its a keychain, handbag, watch or whatever you see hawked on Canal St., Chinatown, (or anywhere around the world that have similar markets) The Local Artisan Guide wants you to remember if you read this article you now know the truth and your decisions are now informed decisions. What kind of world that you would like to contribute to?

No excuses.

By Natalie Rivera

The Local Artisan Guide

Design Theft

Last night Ivanka Trump walked onto the stage to the tune of "Here Comes the Sun" (much to the dismay and disapproval of George Harrison's estate) and while she spoke on behalf of how her father Donald Trump was going to make "America Great Again" and his plan to help small businesses, we thought it very hypocritical of Ivanka Trump as her lifestyle brand has been guilty on occasion of practicing the same corrupt methods of her father. Many small business will attest to how the Trump Organization will use their services and then pay a small percentage of their invoice if anything at all causing many businesses to practically collapse or have to let go of employees. Trump Organization assumes that small businesses do not have the funds for a long protracted law suit and bully their clients into accepting little or no pay for their services. Ivanka Trump is apparently a chip off the old block as her brand has been publicly called out and has a few lawsuits against them for design theft.

Ivanka Trump entering and addressing the RNC to George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun". More like "Here comes Trouble".

One of the problems of being a local artisan in today’s world is design theft.

Having worked in the corporate retail fashion industry for almost twenty years in the production and product development arena, this site is familiar with the workings of how large fashion brands create and develop their product.

In the first stage of designing a collection for larger brands the designer is sent on a shopping trip for aspiration and inspiration samples (i.e. other brand’s products). Some brands send their designers on adventures to be inspired by nature, cultures and architecture. However most brands go to Europe or Asia and shop for items of clothing, accessories or jewelry that will be part of their samples for inspiration.

A good designer would take one aspect of something they found on their trip and elevate and/or appropriate the idea to make it their own and within the aesthetics of their brands. It could be a pattern from an expensive piece of vintage wear, a dress from another brand, a piece of jewelry or a button from a low cost brand. Researching on the internet or catalogues has made seeing what is being offered globally much easier for most brands. The design team then creates inspiration boards which reflect trends, materials and color palettes that everyone has agreed to work from to form a cohesive style statement.

However especially in the last few years we are seeing well known brands that are high end or brands that specialize in mass production at low price points blatantly steal the ideas and designs of smaller, local artisans. Brands such as Zara, Banana Republic, H&M, Ivanka Trump and ASOS have knocked off designs of smaller brands without even changing much of the original design. Its not designing just another nude pump or t-shirt, it’s very intricate designs that are being copied detail by detail.

I have heard from many smaller brands that they do not let in other brands in their showrooms or even let buyers or merchandisers come in as they just steal their ideas and designs and have them created elsewhere. This isn’t only for clothing, its footwear, accessories, home decor, jewelry plus other areas of design. Many smaller brands are vulnerable to other designers just coming into their shops and downright stealing their ideas and designs.

These larger brands have access to legal teams and count on the “grey area” of stealing intellectual property from other brands. They rely on the fact that for the most part the local artisan does not have a budget for a legal team to sue for design infringement. Due to this atmosphere there is rampant theft of intellectual property that does not go challenged in the design world domestically and internationally.

While many may appreciate seeing a Gucci or Balmain knockoff in Zara now within reach of their budget they are ignorant that they, the customer contribute to the problem. They remain unaware that many (not all) of the designs they are purchasing are not original and hurt the business of the original designer whether it is high end couture or local artisans.

Much of the blame can be laid at the hands of the venture capitalist who have acquired most of the well known brands you recognize. These investors don’t want to hear that fashion is fickle, they want a return on their investment and for them part of that is laying a very structured design process that doesn’t breed originality. They want a sure deal. Their buyers, sales teams and merchandisers have numbers on what worked and what didn’t so the design team starts out with limits placed upon them even before the design process begins. There are very few brands today that are design driven instead of merchant driven. The big business of corporate fashion is one of the reasons there are so many local artisans out there as they left corporate fashion to design their own lines and bring originality back to their trade.

With the advent of social media, it has been a great tool to put a spotlight on when these infringements happen. Just recently the very artisanal Italian shoe brand Aquazzura has decided to take legal action against the Ivanka Trump brand for blatantly stealing their footwear designs. The style in question is very intricate and it was copied in its entirety. Of course in typical Trump fashion they denied they copied Aquazzura’s design however since the design was quite original Aquazzura feel they have a good case against Ivanka Trump and ask to cease and desist and take the product off the shelves (the main action a brand asks another brand to do when there is design infringement). The Ivanka Trump line also in the past was taken to task by Derek Lam for copying a footwear design that was quite original and not to be mistaken as a design coincidence.

Here is an example of Ivanka Trump's brand blatantly stealing from the smaller more artisan Italian artisan brand Aquazzura.

What is curious about this particular Aquazzura style is that Zara, Banana Republic and ASOS also copied this design yet they have not been sued as of now for design infringement. Aquazzura also is currently suing Marc Fisher for design infringement for another style that again was quite original and hard to believe it was a design coincidence.

One of the problems with corporate fashion and design is that most brands follow very similar processes and trend reports which makes it definitely plausible to have designs that are very similar. If you walk down Broadway now in Soho nearly every mainstream brand has white eyelet clothing and dresses with men’s shirting patterns in similar color palettes. This design process is what the larger brands are counting on for their defense legally as to why their designs are similar to others.

Ironically no one gets as upset or puts more money to stop being copied than the larger, well known retail brands as so much of their production is made in China. The counterfeit problem there is of massive proportions as the Chinese love owning well known brands. There are plazas in China that resemble upscale malls where all the product is actually all counterfeit. The brands get very upset and invest a lot of money to try and prevent factories from copying and distributing “their designs” as they rightly resent the lost of potential revenue. However that is exactly how the local artisan and smaller brands feel too when their designs are copied.

My recommendation for smaller artisans when they see their designs copied by other brands (especially their more intricate, original designs) are to send a cease and desist letter to the brand and use social media to highlight the design infringement. Once its out in social media that a certain brand is stealing designs it is hard to get rid of that reputation and these days reputation is everything.

In the meantime feel free to let The Local Artisan Guide know when this happens and we will be more than happy to shine a light on the matter. If we don’t let them get away with it in the first place this will be a diminishing problem in the design world however we all need to work together in the first place. And to the general public, as a customer you need to take on your responsibility of not shopping in places that you know are guilty of design theft. As for designers, wouldn’t you rather your work be an original? As Oscar Wilde use to say, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”