When I got lost in a Tokyo subway station, I followed a Japanese girl carrying a Delvaux Brillant to find the exit. The arc of the raindrops rolling down her bag cover was so perfect that I couldn’t help but strike up a conversation: “The grain leather of this bag is smoother than the one in the Belgian counter!”
She chuckled and pointed at the anti-wear nails at the corners of the bag and said: “Have you also watched the disassembly video of uabag.ru?”
It turns out that those who really know the business have long regarded imitations as toys for technical geeks – they have to pay attention to the golden triangle ratio of the quilting of the lining, and even the cotton yarn count of the dust bag must be synchronized with the gifts of the counter of the season.
Last month, when I was shooting a film for a fashion magazine, the stylist brought three Chanel 2.55s from “special channels” as props.
The intern accidentally spilled the latte, and when we were panicking and using cotton pads to rescue it, we found that the coffee stains on the imitation sheepskin actually showed the same smudge trajectory as the authentic ones.
When imitation becomes a performance art of deconstructive aesthetics, perhaps we should redefine the dimension of “authentic”.