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Small-scale leather workshops are increasingly marketing imitations of brand-name handbags on social media platforms as “handmade items.” Many even offer courses that teach customers how to make their own fakes.
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Small-scale leather workshops specializing in imitations of brand-name products
Counterfeit handbags copying the designs of high-priced luxury items are being increasingly promoted and sold as “handmade items” amid a recent trend of leather workshops selling their crafts over blogs and social media. Experts urged caution, noting that the workshops’ overt copies of luxury items could be in violation of the law. In a recent trend, small-scale leather brands have begun crafting their own “brand-name bags.” “Leather crafts started gaining population about three or four years ago, and a lot of the smaller companies have been making a selling straightforward copies of luxury bag designs,“ explained a leather workshop manager surnamed Nam who works in Seoul’s Dongdaemun district. “There are also a lot of cases where customers pay a ‘course fee’ to make their own fakes under the guise of ‘studying leather crafts,’” Nam noted. According to industry sources, the asking price for the fake brand-name bags sold on social media or leather shop blogs is typically between 1.5 and 2 million won (US$1,400–1,880) – not cheap, but well below half the 10 million won (US$9,380) or more charged for the genuine article in the cases of luxury items like Birkin bags or Kelly bags by Hermès. “With more and more promotion these days over social media, there’s a growing number of shops that exclusively sell Hermès copies,” said “Kim,” who runs a leather workshop in Seoul’s Jongno district. “There’s a lot of demand for brand-name copies, so they’ve also become very important for promotion,” Kim added. The leather workshops’ classes on brand-name bag making have become a part of the curriculum for people starting out in leather crafts. When asked about this, one small leather workshop in Seoul’s Gangnam district with its own “Birkin bag class” said even a beginner could produce a copy of the Birkin bag after taking classes once a week for five weeks. A source with the workshop said it charged course fees of 690,000 won (US$647) for imported leather and 490,000 won (US$460) for domestic leather. An online portal site search for “making Birkin bags” and “making Kelly bags” on the afternoon of May 13 turned up hundreds of advertisements by leather workshops. But legal experts cautioned that making and selling copies of luxury bags – or charging course fees to teach people to make their own – could be in violation of the law. “Even if the label has been removed, there’s a good possibility it’s in violation of copyright or other laws if the design itself is well known,” said a lawyer who reported expertise in cases involving intelligent property rights. “Not just selling fakes but also teaching and learning the process of making them could be a violation of Korea’s Copyright Act,” the lawyer added. Another lawyer explained, “It hasn’t been an issue because the [brand name] companies haven’t filed suit, but in terms of the law this appears to constitute an infringement of rights.” Some small-scale leather workshops admitted to being ashamed of making fake luxury items in a field where makers pride themselves on originality and distinctness from manufactured items. “A lot of South Korea’s leather workshops don’t have the originality to match their technical expertise,” said Nam, who manages a brand of leather goods. “They don’t have the capacity to produce original designs, and there’s a lot of demand for brand-name copies, so they focus on fakes,” Nam said. “It’s embarrassing to just copy wholesale the designs developed by another company.” By Im Jae-woo, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
