Working against fashion counterfeiting // LISAA Alumni

Laury: I started out in linguistics and business. After a BA in modern languages (English/Italian) and a first MA year in Trilingual Negotiation in International Business, I joined the master’s in Fashion & Luxury Management, directly into the second year.

I am still in the junior stages of my career. As a graduate, I undertook work placements: three months in Milan in client services for fashion and luxury brands as an assistant manager of an Italian company, and six months in Monaco, at the talented scarf and collar designer Swann Hostein, as assistant e-marketing communication & community manager.

I recently became interested in the profession of customs officer. I find being able to act and work against counterfeits or animal trafficking fascinating.

This enthusiasm increased during my first work placement in Milan. Counterfeiting affects many luxury brands and I found it hard to understand why clients didn’t really receive a response when they contacted client services about this matter.

As such I wanted to learn about the subject and fill this gap. There isn’t much writing but rather articles or reports that I would qualify as factual.

In my opinion, counterfeiting is a major issue in the fashion and luxury industry, which is not yet sufficiently taken into account by brands. Yet there is a real education to be put in place.

People tend to imagine counterfeiting as something crudely and badly done. But today, we’re talking about near-perfect imitations! It’s very difficult to detect the fake from the genuine. The behaviour of consumers is worth analysing in depth, as some don’t think twice about buying very good copies online at the same price as a genuine luxury product.

Beyond that, there is a real public health danger, as the materials used don’t conform to European standards with regards to chemical composition. By the same token, tinted glass used in counterfeit sunglasses does not protect from harmful UV rays. And these are just two examples among many others!

There are companies that have understood the impact of the problem of counterfeiting. Most often, they are companies that work on innovative textile technology such as intelligent microchips integrated into clothes, invisible inks… Some brands, like Louis Vuitton and Louboutin, for example, also protect themselves from this threat by setting up an anti-counterfeit department.

That said, taking into account the thousands of luxury brands that exist, this only represents a minuscule proportion and all of the rest can be copied. Brands should build client and logistics databases in order to be able to act transparently and trace their products. Today the trend is for vintage, which indirectly leads another type of consumer towards luxury brands. In my opinion, these consumers deserve to know what they are buying.

See Laury Vialard’s Facebook page on counterfeiting