To be experiencing schadenfreude? China/designer scandal

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China has lifted their confidentiality laws as a retaliation to Trump's tariffs.

As such big producers over there are revealing how European designer brands use them to manufacture their goods to be sold here with massive mark ups.

My mother in law likes a designer bag or 100. She's very snobby about her mates who buy counterfeit in Turkey etc. She once said 'I know it's not real because I know she can't afford it'. Hideous comment.

Aibu to be experiencing schadenfreude given the fact that her bags, and her mates' knock off were probably made on the same production line?

It's called paying for a brand your not paying for the product itself it's why I'll never buy one the vintage bags cost more because they were made back when they cared about quality now it's just about how much idiots will pay

TikTok has loads of Chinese warehouse post of manufactures showing what they make, how much they cost and even inviting people to buy from them direct.
I’m not sure who will even want the genuine articles now though, when their desirability has been damaged after being devalued so much.

I know!

The snobs are going to be hating this!!!

My friend worked for Tom Ford Europe another friend bought some sun glasses friend 1 said to me guess how much we pay for those in China £300 glasses less than a $

The only people surprised will be people who buy them for the status. Didn't used to be the case though, the majority of designer brands used to be superior quality- better materials, production quality and designs. Mulberry is a prime example imo, their older bags last and last whereas their newer bags are crap quality and even more expensive! I agree though it's humorous for those who feel themselves better than others because they can afford an overpriced bag

I’m glad this is happening, good for the Chinese on lifting these rules so it can be out in the open.

When I was a student I did a stint in a chocolate factory, same lines would make supermarket own brands and more upmarket brands. The only difference was the packaging at the end, exact same product - people are paying for a label & marketing.

This has been known for years though. I fly for a living and crews often bid for Shanghai or Beijing trips so they can stock up on designer goods made in China but being sold in the local markets. The ‘fakes’ are made in the same factories by the same people as the real thing. The only difference now is that China are actively putting this information out to the world.

How do we know the TikToks are real, though? Could it not be same sellers of the awful counterfeit bags just saying they make the real ones too to drive traffic/sales to their site?

My point was my schadenfreude re my mil's snobby comments

The best quality sunglasses are made in Italy and a lot of the best designer brands are manufactured there. It’s well known in the industry that the Far East manufactured ones are inferior quality. Designer labels trying to flog Chinese manufactured as premium brand really do have a massive cheek. Tom Ford are definitely off my list!

Used to work for a UK sunglasses company. We designed our own ranges and worked with a factory in Italy to have them made to our specifications. Great quality and lasted for years. Also sold a budget range manufactured in the Far East. No design input allowed with those, we had to accept the Chinese manufacturer’s range and have them badged. We were also UK distributors for an Italian designer brand and those were manufactured in Italy.

With the brands you pay for quality control. It might come from the same factory but they won’t have strict quality control and you might end up with an inferior product.

many high end brands split the manufacture process across several geographies to stop counterfeits. Eg base product manufactured in china, branded buttons added in Poland and final brand added in France.

I lived in China in the early 2000s, and even then it was well known the knock-offs were made in the exact same factories and were essentially the exact same products but minus the branding. This isn't new news to anyone who has been paying attention (by anyone, I mean people who think the cost of a luxury item is inevitably a indication of superior quality). Urban legend when I lived in China had it that even Tommy Hilfiger himself had visited some of the markets in Beijing notorious for selling knock off designer items and confessed he couldn't tell the difference between his own company's branded items sold in the States and the knock offs sold in Beijing markets. There really aren't fakes anymore, everything is just the same except for whether or not you're sucked in by the branding!

I watched a Birken one and the bags are really high quality with the best leather, there ect… materials alone were worth 1,500 dollars.

There is obviously a huge mark up. But is is hardly a surprise, how on earth could any bag be worth 45,000 without a huge mark up.

You mean that's what people tell themselves 😂 China's made the bags for years AliExpress sells them

I know I'm not the target market, but I have no idea why anyone would think they gain status by the labels they proudly wear.

There are whole shopping centres in China, fake markets, dedicated to designer products. All products exactly like the the official ones. Victoria Beckham, Converse, Hunter, Mulberry, Dior. Make-up too, Chanel, YSL etc but a miniscule price.

I also worked in a factory as a student, and although the same factory made branded and supermarket's own goods, they definitely weren't the same products! Each day of the week was devoted to manufacturing the product for a particular brand - eg Monday would be Kellogg's cornflakes, Tuesday would be Tesco's Golden Flakes etc. Each brand had its own recipe and specified the ingredients to be used. The production lines would be thoroughly cleaned at the end of each day, so none of the Kellogg's ingredients would go into the Tesco's Golden Flakes etc.

I'm not convinced that "same production line" equals "same product" (at least when it comes to food).

It's not just bag companies that do this either when I was a kid I lived in a poor neighbourhood and a lot of my friends parents sewed clothes for Nike and Adidas 😂

Exactly. Wanting their expensive product to be special. It's just conspicuous consumption used to signify wealth and social status.

That Hermes bag doesn't have quite the same cachet if the girl on the supermarket checkout has one, does it? 😂

It doesn't. In blind tests , you can taste the difference.

If you look at Mcvitites digestives vs Sainsbury digestives vs M&S digestives etc there are subtle differences in the % key ingredients. There definitely is a difference although quite often the % difference doesn't warrant the price difference for most people.

The "luxury" brands were exposed years ago. It just didn't catch fire like it has now.

Dana Thomas wrote an expose back in the 00s called Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster that examined the big conglomerates and their outsourcing.

Birkin copies costing well under $200 used to be on eBay coming in from Hong Kong.

Due to TikTok, now everybody knows those trendy bags are all about the markup.