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With counterfeit luxury goods getting harder and harder to spot, China’s
rich are paying thousands of dollars for specialized courses on how to
tell apart authentic luxury products from fakes.
China’s domestic luxury market is currently valued at approximately 4
trillion yuan ($617.7 billion) and that’s not even taking into account
the second-hand luxury goods trade, but this boom has also given rise to
sophisticated counterfeiting. Stories of bargain hunters being conned
into parting with their money in exchange for hard-to-spot fake luxury
products are very common on Chinese social media, so much so that there
are now companies offering specialized courses on how to tell authentic
luxury goods like Louis Vuitton or Chanel bags from counterfeit ones.
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The Extraordinary Luxuries Business School in Beijing charges people
15,800 yuan ($2,400) for a 7-day course on how to tell authentic luxury
products from really well-done fakes. Founder Zhang Chen teaches
students little-known ways of checking certain big brand products, like
which characters on a Chanel ID card should light up under UV light, or
which letters in the Chanel logo use a rectangular rather than square
font.
Zhang claims that the price he asks for his courses is worth paying, as
it gives students a leg up in the booming second-hand luxury good trade.
His clients are all affluent people, but they come from all walks of
life, from fashion magazine editors, to former counterfeiters looking to
build on their skills and looking for a less shady line of work.
But Zhang’s Extraordinary Luxuries Business School is only the latest
institution to offer this sort of service. Back in 2018, Sixth Tone
published a piece on similar classes offered by the Luxury Appraisal
Center
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