My Birkin Blog

Article | Socialites warned of fake trap | www.smh.com.au

The titans of the luxury business have a message for Sydney socialites such as Lady Sonia McMahon, who was recently photographed at a social function carrying a fake Hermes Birkin bag: that steal could cost you more than the real thing.

Should Lady Sonia ever take her fake Birkin to France, whose intellectual property laws are rigorously enforced, Australia's former first lady could find herself detained at the airport, taken to the police station and fined thousands of dollars. Anyone who is considered part of a larger operation could go to jail.

Lady McMahon is part of a growing contingent of affluent consumers purchasing luxury fakes, according to Hermes executive vice-president in charge of international affairs, Christian Blanckaert.

"I think it's very impolite," Mr Blanckaert said in Hong Kong yesterday. "[Lady McMahon] shouldn't do that. Her husband was a prime minister."

Blanckaert was in Hong Kong attending "Luxury 2004: The Lure of Asia", the fourth annual luxury conference convened by the International Herald Tribune. The subject of counterfeiting was front-of-mind of nearly all 30 speakers who included a who's who of the luxury industry and Hong Kong's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa.

Mr Tung opened proceedings by telling the 1000 delegates that Hong Kong took intellectual property very seriously and was working hard to battle breaches.

But with street vendors and legitimate boutiques around Hong Kong's fashionable shopping district of Causeway Bay stacked with fakes, Mr Tung clearly isn't doing enough.

At $HK14,000 ($2300) apiece for the two Louis Vuitton bags that the Herald spotted in one window, they are not giving these fakes away.

The global law firm Baker & McKenzie's international partner, Tan Loke-Khoon, told the conference that he often had to take his clients with him to ID the contraband seized during raids. He said this was necessary because the quality was of such a high standard.