I went to canal street out of curiosity...yay for real bags...

[cola262]

I went to Canal st today out of curiosity. I even went to a "Back room!" Yes, I'm pathetic but it was highly entertaining for me. First, I was impressed at the originality of some bags. Many bags had no brands on it and didn't even look inspired. I was told some were name brands from China that we never hear of (probably knocked off from those). MANY inspired purses were available, though. Some were soo cute! They are very competitive so can knock down the price.

Lots of girls were coming in and out with black bags and a girl asked to see some coach bags and I went to the back with her and there were loads of coach, prada, fendi spy and 1 lv. The bags were sooo ugly. The coach's looked cheap, especially the buckle part, and the LV monogram was stiff and plasticky...though from far away it looked ok. The dude explained that coach and prada were too dangerous to display in the front and louis was too dangerous period so he personally won't order any more lv so that's his last one.

But ALL of the bag stores were totally not hesitant to display D&G bags (mostly original bags or marc jacob knockoffs with metal D&G plates on them), Chloe, and balenciaga (there were out there in the open clearly marked). Also, a bunch of stores had loads of kooba, fendi spy's and bottega venneta. So nothing is safe from the fakers. The kooba and BV's looked nice from far away, but I think the bv are pleather.

 

[alvie223]

I"m having nightmares just reading your account, or being near those guilty of being absolute scum of the earth

 

[ellie1]

This is so sad. Fake bags fall apart and never look like the real bags..no matter how hard they try.

 

[Coachlover123]

Ohhh yes i have been there too. It is just sad to look at the bags.

 

[Tura**Satana]

That place scares me if I walk around. I try not to carry any bag with me with a designer on it. I feel like everyone would think I am carrying a fake.

 

[lisaluckylizzie]

I work in the chinatown/nolita area and I can't help but laugh at all the women who are strolling the streets for knock-off bags.
It's REALLY sad -- I mean, bordering on pathetic. Today I saw two grown women get into a beat up mini-van and emerge with a trash bag (covering the fake bag, of course). Lord knows what it was and how it looked. All i know is that I had a pretty good laugh for at least ten minutes.

 

[fendigal]

I was shocked to see the piles of inspired bags on tables being sold right on the streets on 5th avenue, just 1/2 block away from Fendi. They were horribly ugly. Once you've had the real ones you can't go back.

 

[cola262]

I was most surprised by the BV bags. I know there was a thread about authenticating BV, but I laughed because I thought it was stealth wealth and nobody made fakes of those.

 

[Lexie2000]

A friend at work went to NYC and purposely went to Canal Street to try to get into the "Back Door". She hates fakes but her curiosity was killing her. She said her husband was super paranoid and felt that they were in danger. She is such a joker and told him the women were't going back their to score drugs but just to score fake bags. She admitted it was seedy.

 

[Laria]

I am kind of amused at the back door thing but how much are those people trying to charge for the fakes?

 

[ms-whitney]

okay. this is me being naive, since i never really shop for fakes, nor do i know much about them (but i can tell, most of the time, if one is fake!)

but if canal street is so famous with knock offs, even at these "back doors" how come companies or the police isn't cracking down on it like they do in europe?

 

[cola262]

The police did crack down recently, but only LV. Each store got fined $2500, which is why they're afraid to carry LV more than other bags.

So this is how it works: They have walkie talkies and check before going in and taking people out of the back door. Once inside the door, there are 2 doors...one door that I think is a decoy for police. The actual back room is a different door. The bags sell for around $20-$40 even for fake pradas made of real leather...so all those ppl buying $100 fakes on ehandbagz and such are getting ripped off.

The bags looked pretty bad, but it's not really that seedy/scary. The back door isn't a crawl space and is very clean.

 

[ms-whitney]

thanks for the info cola!

does sound somewhat scary..i wonder what happens when you're inside the room and all of a sudden the police came.

*cough* i'm guessing they'll only let a handful of people in at a time.

i can't believe that stuff like this is sold in stores! they should be sold in the back trunk of cars if sold at all.......

 

[cola262]

I saw this bag exactly, complete with the monograms of some imaginary person. The girl who went in with me asked "what is CLG?" And the dude replied "haha, it's a new bag. I don't know, we just copy them"

LOL!!!!!

 

[thithi]

Canal street is a haven for fake bags... it's awful! And it's displayed all over the place without shame. LA has a similar area called the garment district, in Santee alley. All of the fakes look awful!