Guide on How to Spot Authentic or Replica Designer Handbags

With so many varieties of handbags available in the market, it's really quite difficult to distinguish what is genuine or fake designer handbag. So you need to be smart enough in dealing with them. Here are some tips to help you easily spot an authentic or replica designer handbag.

Designer Handbag Tip #1:

SCRUTINIZE first the material of the handbag carefully. The quality of the material is one of the best ways to know if it's knock-off or not since most fake suppliers or manufacturers will always use secondary material for manufacturing replica designer handbags. It is therefore will give you a smart idea about the originality of these products.

Designer Handbag Tip #2:

Make sure that the handbag comes with attractive packaging. Since fake manufacturers or suppliers are not able to match those packaging of the original designer handbags, this can be a great tip to easily identify fake handbags. While the handbag itself may be hard to examine, its packaging can provide certain clues on whether it's a fake or not. Always be aware for its important small details such as labels, tags, authenticity cards and even dust boxes which will give you some hints in their real identities.

Try to look for its emblem tags. Emblem tags can be attached to the corner of the handbag, just inside the straps or maybe attached to its zipper. Authentic designer handbags will often have extra trademark or stitching which make them truly different from any knockoff handbags. This emblem tag includes the "Creed", a code of letters and numbers that specify its uniqueness to any other designer handbags and having any spaces on it will mean that the handbag is a fake.

Does it have an authenticity card? If it doesn't have and it's for sure it's a knockoff. Be sure to check it first before accepting the product or ask the seller why it’s not included with your purchase. This is very important to do since leading designer handbags will all have some form of identification or authenticity card that shows where the handbag was manufactured, and even might include a receipt of production.

Designer Handbag Tip #3:

Look closely at the logo designs. These are very difficult to imitate or copy completely, and many replica handbags simply use a variation of the original design. This can involve a slight color change, inconsistent printing, or upside down letters. Whatever the case may be, make sure you learn as much as possible about the original before you end up buying a copy or look-a-like.

With all these simple steps keeping in mind we can take a decision about the fakeness of the handbags and can save a lot of money.

Jackie inspired

This post is inspired by Jackie's quote which I have found recently: "Sex is a bad thing because it rumples the clothes." So true, girls, isn't it? (But sorry, no sex below. Maybe another time.)

Her legend is still alive, her style is still inspiring. You can tell looking at the fall/winter runways, especially at Dior's and Oscar the la Renta's collections. Here are a few examples:

6267, Aquascutum, Dior, Dior

Fendi, Giambattista Valli, Lanvin, Michael Kors

Oscar de la Renta, Ralph Lauren, Versace, Zac Posen

Madonna 2.0

She is talented, gorgeous and stylish. Fashion designers love her vintage look. She wears "anything fruit" as she says. It's Katy Perry - young sensational pop singer with quirky, pinup style.

Katy has been already unofficial muse of Betsey Johnson, but even Karl Lagerfeld is one of her fans (gave her Chanel LBD). She is very much into pinup style of 40's, but also neon, rock star look of 80's. Her stylist Johny Wujek says about the new star: "Katy loves to push the boundaries and be her own colorful self. She once told me she wanted to look like an ice cream cone, so I got her a Jeremy Scott dress that's actually an ice cream cone." Oh yes, Katy loves themed dressing-up.

Her style is as interesting as some lyrics of her songs. Both "Ur so gay" and "I kissed a girl" generated huge buzz in the music world. Not only because the lyrics are controversial themselves, but also because Katy grew up in a Christian household as the daughter of two pastors and even released a religious album in 2001. You must admit, a huge change in this girl must have happened.

But above all that, she seems to be nice and funny 23 year-old (see videos from her concerts) with this potential to become someone big, not just for one season, in both - fashion and music world.

Links: her blog, her myspace.

Source of the pics: Katy's flickr

Anna, finally...

You don't get many good eds in US Vogue nowadays. That's why I would strongly recommend that one. OK, it features Caroline Trentini (for 1 324 327th time), but in general it's really nice. I love the idea of Billy Elliot's theme, clothes are pretty, the fairy atmosphere is surprisingly well shown. Photographed by Arthur Elgort.

Ils (ne) sont (pas) fous, ces Français!

To my mind French are number one nation when it comes to style. Scandinavians are individualistic, New Yorkers - modern, Japanese - eccentric, Italian - sexy, but only French can take a little bit from all the listed features and still look so classy. That's why I am a huge fan of Garance Dore and other French street style websites plus wardrobe blogs, of course.

Of course, it's my opinion, but nobody can argue with the fact - France is definitely the most important country when speaking about fashion's history. Little black dress, "The New Look", polo shirt, miniskirt, bikini and many more - not even mentioning the parts of wardrobe from the past (like redingote or polonaise) - everything created by French designers.

And you can see that even when saying the names of different parts of clothing. Here are a couple of examples (English, Polish or both) of fashion words coming from French:

Béret: beret (eng), beret (pl)
Espadrilles: espadrilles (eng), espadryle (pl)
Cravate: cravate (eng), krawat/krawatka (pl)
Jupe plissé: skirt plisse (eng), spódnica plisowana (pl)
Robe chemisier: szmizjerka (pl)
Robe princesse: princeska (pl)

Any other examples?

And on the pictures - deux parisiennes - Louise (picture taken from the Sartorialist) and Betty (taken from her wonderful blog).

Black beauties

My goodness! The last two weeks of my life were definitely something else! From being extremely sad, to being extremely happy and just feeling nothing between the explosions of either wonderful or terrible mood. Now I feel exhausted.
Two important things happened, which will definitely influence my blogging. 1) My apartment was robbed and laptop was stolen. 2) I was chosen for the seminar on immigration issues - the event is going to take place in Spain and will last for a week. I hope to bring some good memories and pictures:)

But... coming back to the fashion issues. I would like to add one more thing on the black models trend. Here are some of the most interesting black girls on the runways at the moment. You may recognize some of them, but their names are definitely not big in the fashion world. Pity, some of them are really beautiful.

Ajuma Nasanyana
Nationality: Kenyan
Ethnicity: Kenyan
Known for: being VS model, being the face of Vivienne Westwood.

Atong Arjok
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Sudanese
Known for: Converse and Sephora ads

Hollis Wakeema
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: African-American (not specified)
Known for: current Paul Smith Women face.

Jaunel McKenzie
Nationality: Jamaican
Ethnicity: Jamaican
Known for: first Jamaican to appear in Vogue US.

Joan Smalls
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Puerto Rican
Known for: being the face of Ports 1981 as well as making appearance in Ricky Martin's video "It's alright".

Kinee Diouf
Nationality: Senegalese
Ethnicity: Senegalese
Known for: being VS model, modeling for Benetton.

Maria (Marie?) Fuema
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: African-American (not specified)
Known for: modeling for Saks Fifth Avenue.

Yasmin Warsame
Nationality: Canadian
Ethnicity: Somalian
Known for: used to model for Valentino couture, Dolce & Gabbana, Escada, Hermes, Shiseido, Chanel, GAP and H&M (and has a son!)

Mimi Roche
Nationality: American
Ethnicity: African-American (not specified)
Known for: being the face of Benetton, Banana Republic and D&G

Samira Bento
Nationality: Brazilian
Ethnicity: Brazilian
Known for: her debut at Diane von Furstenberg (above)

Honorine Uwera
Nationality: Canadian
Ethnicity: Rwandan
Known for: being number one within Canadian non-caucasian models nowadays

The Fashion Side of Beijing Olympics

Check out here some photos covering the fashion side of Beijing Olympics


Models and athletes walk down the runway on April 30, 2008 wearing a selection of the Bay's Olympic apparel line that Canadian athletes will be provided with for the Beijing games.

Find out more here.

LBD

125. B-day of Coco Chanel. I apologize I could do more for such an important day, my laptop was stolen and I have limited access to the internet.

You can find the names of the celebrities at my Flickr account.

Neohippi

Just a couple of inspirational pieces:


The Sartorialist, Reykjavik Looks, Hel Looks


Garance Dore

give me some space!

open space + fashion + photography = looks good
(all the pictures come from fall/winter campaigns)

Bette Franke in Roberto Cavalli advert

Mariacarla Boscono in Hermes advert

Anja Rubik, Magdalena Frackowiak in Oscar de la Renta advert

Stephanie Seymour in Loewe advert

source: fashionspot

Back to black

I already have written some of my thoughts on this topic at this blog, but as the situation continues, I would like to come back to the black model issue.

Of course, black (or generally - non-caucasian) models are discriminated in the fashion world, that's the fact. And now, after the famous statement of Naomie's, that "fashion favors fair skin", the discrimination became the "it" topic in modeling. And so now we've got more and more black girls in the magazines and on the covers. Here are some examples.

POP magazine for the upcoming fall have created 6 covers - 3 with white models, 3 with black ones (Naomie being one of them). Harper's Bazaar put on it's cover Tyra Banks (I hoped that she's forgotten, what a pity). And now Jourdan Dunn got the cover of the new i-D. Please, notice, that all of the mentioned covers will appear for the September issues - and it is not yet 10th of August.

Don't get me wrong - I really think that diversity in fashion magazines and in fashion in general is a good thing. But the diversity we have now is not a result of real tolerance, but a-few-months-lasting trend. Speaking of myself, I would really like to see some Asian or Latino faces on the covers, but what I am left with, is just waiting for another trend to come.

The situation reminds me of politics towards Chinese government. For years and years people around the world were aware of the situation in Tibet and nothing had been done. Now - with the Olympics starting - so many people are protesting against the discrimination in China. Again - noble reason, but still just a trend.

(On the other hand, don't you have this impression that lack of well-known black models keeps Campbell in the industry?)