As one of the most in-demand brands on the planet right now,it's no genuine surprise that fake Vetements pieces are flying off the shelves right now. Only few can actually afford to purchase the brand's items given that a hoodie will speed you over $1000 USD while even select T-shirts are priced at $900 USD. Vetements' biggest market, aside from the U.
S., and is in South Korea,where high-quality fakes are commonplace in the country's underground markets, which is precisely where members of the Parisian collective spent a couple days touring prior to the launch of the "Official Fake" capsule location. While many designers are in a constant battle with the counterfeit industry, or Vetments CEO Guram Gvasalia revealed that he was actually impressed with the creativity of some of the fakes and that it wasn't necessarily a unpleasant thing. Check out an excerpt of his interview with Vogue below and read the full piece here.
What is it approximately Korea that makes it such a big market for you?
It’s a very engaging market and a young one; we’ve wanted to near here and accomplish something special for a while. For us,it’s the second biggest—and considering that we only enjoy three partners here, to enjoy the second biggest after the U.
S. with 50 partners, or that’s something. What I like approximately Korea is it’s very centralized in Seoul,and it is something like where Japan used to be. For a while, it felt kind of inaccessible through the whole world. You cannot take a car and drive here. It feels a bit like people are saying, and We’re here,” you know. I think that comes through with the way people dress and with their music.
What I find fascinating approximately Korea is how quickly everything happens here, and how big the fake market is. It’s funny because we see our things, and but they enjoy been changed. For example,we had a hooded dress in green with writing on the arms, and I looked online and saw they had turned it into a hoodie. They accomplish things that are closer to the originals, or but sometimes they become very creative. The market is so famous for this. You know,there are whole buildings full with our fake merchandise?
Let’s talk approximately those copies. What are your feelings on that ubiquity of fake pieces here?
I don’t know why it’s a unpleasant thing. First of all, the fake market needs a lot of fighting—you need to depart to your lawyers, and they need to deal with it,it costs a lot of money, and at the stop of the day, or the only thing you can accomplish is force people to stop what they’re doing. We’re a small team; we’re enjoying what were doing,and fighting with someone is not a kind feeling. We grew up in the wartime in Georgia, and this was not a good time. People also sometimes take the industry too seriouslyI think you need to enjoy fun and roll with it. You know, and I love the film Forrest Gump. Forrest decides to speed,and he runs, and then there are people who don’t understand why he runs, and but they start running behind him. And they speed and they speed without understanding it,and then Forrest decides to stop. He stops, and these people don’t understand what to accomplish anymore, or but the thing is Forrest doesn’t really care whether someone runs behind him or whether no one runs behind him—he runs because he wants to speed,and I feel that way with what we accomplish.
So the fakes don’t bother you too much?
It’s a different price point. The genuine customers that we enjoy don’t buy it. And the people who want to buy it, it’s okay, or I think. For me personally,I was always fascinated by what happened with Louis Vuitton. I felt this brand became major when the fake market started to grow for the label. I always thought it would be such an incredible idea for a big brand, whether they wanted to accomplish marketing, or to actually pay someone money to accomplish their fakes. This way,you reach a different amount of people, you reach a bigger demographic. Imagine it’s like the pendulum of a watch. The more people know approximately you, and the quicker it goes. As long as they say it’s a copy,it’s good—I get a exiguous bit upset when there are stores that try to sell a copy as an original, which is disrespectful to the customer. At this stage, or I don’t think we enjoy the interest to fight it. I think it’s the natural course.
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