Imitation, or fake, handbags and accessories have evolved far beyond the cheap knockoffs of the past. Today, many are almost indistinguishable from the real thing, earning them the nickname “Superfakes”.
Recent legal battles have highlighted the sensitivity of the issue. In December 2025, French luxury brand Louis Vuitton took Mainboard-listed pawnshop ValueMax to court, accusing it of trademark infringement and “passing off” — selling products in a way that could make customers think they were genuine Louis Vuitton items.
Earlier, in July 2025, an Instagram seller peddling fake Louis Vuitton products, including phone cases, passport covers and card holders, was ordered to pay the brand $200,000 in damages. Louis Vuitton initially filed a lawsuit claiming $2.9 million in damages against him in August 2023, but that figure was deemed to be “grossly excessive”.
For ValueMax, the case was settled out of court and officially withdrawn on Feb 12. The Edge Singapore reached out to ValueMax as well as the other two listed pawnshops, MoneyMax and Maxi-Cash. MoneyMax and Maxi-Cash declined to comment, while a spokesperson from ValueMax said the case brought by Louis Vuitton was “an infringement of trademarks”. The spokesperson added: “The disputed items were made of genuine gold which have greatly appreciated in value at current gold prices.”
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There is a roaring business for counterfeit goods. According to a 2025 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the trading of fake goods is worth about US$467 billion ($593.6 billion) annually, comprising over 2% of global imports.
A 2024 paper by brand protection and trademark solutions provider Corsearch predicted that global trade in counterfeit goods could reach US$1.79 trillion in 2030, about 75% higher than the amount logged in 2023. The growth is also tipped to be 3.6 times higher than predicted for the global economy over the same period. The study also found that counterfeits accounted for 3.3% of global trade in 2023, and this will grow to 5% by 2030.
Luxury authenticator Entrupy says in its annual State of the Fake report for 2025 that the top five most faked brands in descending order are: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Chanel and Saint Laurent.
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Entrupy’s ranking is based on the total number of submitted items that their systems marked as “unidentified.” Out of the five brands, Entrupy says Chanel accounted for the highest total dollar value at over US$500 million.
All of this is taking place amid soaring luxury goods prices. In 2025, McKinsey & Company and the Business of Fashion published a joint report titled The State of Fashion: Luxury. The report shows that leather goods and branded items have seen the steepest price rises, with some doubling in cost between 2019 and 2023. The price increases were so significant that they helped to drive 80% of the luxury industry’s growth over the same period, it adds.
Stéphane J.G. Girod, a professor of strategy and organisational innovation at the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, says there are two key reasons people are turning to superfakes instead of the real deal.
First, many people buy counterfeits simply because they cannot afford the real thing. “The prominence of luxury brands through their massive communication campaigns in the last 30 years has actually made them desirable for a lot of people, but most people cannot afford them,” says Girod. Secondly, it is just becoming a lot easier to gain access to the superfakes thanks to the Internet. “You can buy at the convenience of a click, so if you know how to navigate, that can encourage the purchasing,” he adds.
According to James Wilson, partner, head of consumer and retail at KPMG Singapore, economic pressures and price fatigue may have led to consumers intentionally purchasing high-quality counterfeits. “We have observed luxury brands raise prices by 54% since 2019, without a corresponding increase in perceived value. This widening gap has created frustration among aspirational consumers who feel increasingly priced out.”
Wilson adds that rising prices have “increasingly alienated” the middle market, while next-generation consumers are moving away from traditional luxury goods in favour of alternatives that feel more “authentic, culturally relevant and aligned with their identity and self-expression”.
Social media has been key to making superfakes popular with young people, says Stefania Saviolo, a lecturer at the SDA Bocconi School of Management. “Social media accelerates all this,” says Saviolo, who is the founder of Bocconi University’s master’s programme in fashion, experience and design management. “It normalises dupes or superfakes as ‘smart’ choices [because] it’s the new trend and removes the aura of mystery that luxury historically relied on.”
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David Dubois, an associate professor of marketing at Insead, argues that customers are opting for superfakes because their “near-identical appearance and acceptable functionality” means their “performance gap” versus the originals is much smaller. “The price-quality trade-off looks attractive for many aspirational buyers. These individuals are more inclined to buy fake luxury if it helps them signal status in their reference group at a lower cost.”
Some may view buying a superfake as a protest against luxury’s high prices and inequalities, but Dubois says this is probably a minority view. “The bulk of empirical work suggests most counterfeit buyers are not ‘activists’ but bargain-hunters seeking status at a discount.”
Luxury isn’t what it once was
It has been a tough market for companies operating in the luxury space. Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) is a French luxury group that counts brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Celine, Givenchy, Moët & Chandon, Hennessy, Tiffany & Co and Bulgari under its umbrella. The conglomerate is often regarded as the bellwether of the luxury sector.
On Jan 27, LVMH reported a 5% y-o-y decline in revenue for the FY2025 ended Dec 31, 2025. Fashion and leather goods, the group’s largest segment, saw revenue fall 8% y-o-y.
The results mark the second straight year of decline in revenue for the luxury group. Net profit, which fell by 13.4% y-o-y to EUR11.2 million ($16.7 million), marked its second consecutive annual decline.
Speaking to investors a day later, CEO Bernard Arnault said the group will “make it through the winter”, but 2026 “won’t be simple”. Referring to the geopolitical developments, Arnault added that it was “extremely difficult” to control “all these geo-economic impacts on our companies”.
Not all companies are facing the same challenges, however. Richemont, whose key brands include Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, IWC Schaffhausen, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Piaget, marked a “very solid” 9MFY2025 ended Dec 31, 2025, with sales up by 5% y-o-y to EUR17 billion and up 10% y-o-y on a constant currency basis. Even so, the group noted that challenges such as “weaker main trading currencies and rising material costs” are continuing to weigh on margins.
Hermès also posted a 5.5% y-o-y increase in revenue of EUR16.0 billion in FY2025, although net profit fell by 1.72% y-o-y to EUR4.52 billion. Excluding the exceptional contribution to the profits of large companies in France, at the same pace as sales, net profit would have been up by 5.5% y-o-y. As at the end of December 2025, currency fluctuations negatively impacted the group’s revenue by around EUR515 million, said the group.
Kering, whose brands include Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga, saw revenue of EUR14.68 billion for the FY2025 ended Dec 31, 2025, 13% lower y-o-y or 10% down on a comparable basis.
Net income attributable to the group, however, plunged by 94% y-o-y to EUR72 million, largely due to restructuring costs, while net income from continuing operations fell by 56% y-o-y to EUR532 million.
Finally, British luxury label Burberry reported retail revenue of GBP665 million for the 13 weeks ended Dec 27, 2025, 1% lower y-o-y or 3% down y-o-y on constant exchange rates.
Despite the differences in performances, shares of all four companies are down year-to-date as of April 5. LVMH’s shares closed at EUR471.05 on April 2, 26.6% down, while Hermès’ shares fell by 20.75% to EUR1,667.50. Richemont’s shares fell by 17.37% to CHF142.90 ($230) while Kering’s shares are down by 12.92% to EUR265.25. Burberry’s shares are also down by 17.89% year-to-date at GBP1,081.
Representatives for LVMH, Kering, Hermès and Burberry did not respond to requests for comment from The Edge Singapore, while Richemont declined to comment.
Demand softened
“Luxury demand has softened globally,” says Olivier Gergele, EY-Parthenon Asean and Singapore consumer products and retail leader. “[A] muted global economic forecast is reshaping discretionary spending,” he adds, with inflation and higher costs of living, as well as ongoing trade and tariff tensions weighing on consumer confidence. “Even affluent consumers are becoming more selective, delaying big-ticket luxury purchases and prioritising financial resilience.”
Yet, Gergele believes the decline is due to normalisation that comes after an unusually strong growth period during the pandemic. “Many consumers made luxury purchases earlier than they normally would have, using savings that would otherwise have gone to travel or leisure.”
Still, he remains optimistic on the long-term outlook for the luxury sector in Southeast Asia, as he sees a gradual rebound in luxury tourism, easing inflationary pressures and a generation of younger luxury shoppers who place “greater emphasis on craftsmanship, sustainability and experiences”.
Vivek Sharma, consumer industry leader at Deloitte Southeast Asia, agrees. Referring to the firm’s Global Powers of Luxury 2026 report, Sharma notes that 66.9% of executives still anticipate stable or growing revenues while 70.1% expect to maintain or improve margins, suggesting that the overall trend is “one of deceleration and normalisation”.
“There’s a very persistent struggle with the cost of living, and consumers are really rethinking what value means,” says Alison Ho, a strategist at the trend forecaster WGSN.
In the past, buying a superfake came off as cheap and distasteful, Ho says. Today, it is seen by some as a smart and financially savvy thing to do. “That fits very nicely into these new values and priorities that have emerged out of the cost of living crisis. So for consumers, especially Generation Z consumers, there’s a much bigger focus on utility and cost-to-value ratio.”
Even so, Ho does not believe that the growing popularity of superfakes was responsible for the dip in luxury goods sales. “Yes, superfakes may affect sales, but it’s not a big enough dent to really explain the decline in luxury. It’s more of a structural shift in terms of how people are rethinking what aspiration means to them.”
Insead’s Dubois takes a similar view. For him, superfakes are not the cause, but a symptom of luxury’s wider slowdown. “Superfakes are best seen as amplifiers of existing structural tensions rather than the primary cause. The same forces affecting primary luxury, such as macro pressure, high prices, digital marketplaces and social media-driven desire for logos, make superfakes more attractive and more accessible.”
Most luxury analysts see the sector’s decline as structural rather than cyclical. This is mainly because the big spending boom that China fueled is beginning to recede amid a wider stagnation in the Chinese economy, says IMD’s Girod.
“It’s very difficult to catch or sustain such a level of growth from other markets because the structure of those markets is different,” he adds, noting that the jury is still out on whether emerging markets like India and Vietnam can replace China.
Notably, the decline of luxury goods has coincided with a rotation in spending toward areas such as travel, hospitality, fine dining, wellness and other forms of experiential luxury, says Insead’s Dubois. “This reflects the fact that consumers increasingly seek well-being, social connection, and self-reward rather than additional objects.”
In fact, the impact on the decline of brands will be uneven. Girod believes that top-end brands like Hermès, Piguet and Patek Philippe will continue to enjoy demand because they are not chasing fast growth. In contrast, much bigger companies, including those owning multiple brands, will have a tougher time trying to sustain the same level of growth that matches their size. Some brands without the same marketing muscle may struggle as well. “We are going to see more consolidation. We are going to see some brands disappear.”
All this is taking place amid a growing interest in the resale market for luxury goods. Younger shoppers are increasingly turning to the second-hand market to get their luxury fix, as opposed to getting them first hand.
According to a report by Boston Consulting Group and Vestiaire Collective published on Oct 9, 2025, the second-hand market for fashion and luxury goods is growing 10% annually, three times faster than the first-hand market. The report, which was based on a survey of 7,800 Vestiaire Collective users, says the global resale market will hit US$360 billion by 2030, up from around US$210 billion in 2025.
While luxury brands may see second-hand goods as a way to convert casual buyers into loyal customers, IMD’s Girod says that may not be the case.
“I’m not sure if it will really happen like this,” says Girod. “I think the Chinese market will never go back to what it was and not just for economic reasons, but also for societal reasons where people have moved onto a different type of consumption.”
Bocconi’s Saviolo, on the other hand, is optimistic about the value of the resale market for luxury sales. “It’s growing faster than first-hand and is a strong signal of people’s enduring desire for luxury goods, especially iconic, special pieces, and that’s reassuring. Better authentication can make resale a gateway rather than a cannibal.”
Real or fake?
To verify luxury goods, retailers can either use services like Entrupy or build their own team of experts. Tresor A. Tan, director of Carousell Luxury, describes the current authentication practices as an “ongoing arms race”, noting that the manufacturers of counterfeits are adapting as fast as the luxury brands themselves.
“We believe that a hybrid approach — combining deep human expertise with data-driven reference libraries — is the most effective defence,” says Tan. Carousell currently has a proprietary digital reference library of over 500 styles of bags, which allows the platform to compare every item against verified examples.
Valuence, a wholesaler for luxury goods for the Japanese market, says they rely on their internal experts as well as external services like Entrupy.
“Sometimes we may use it, although not often,” Antonio Lei, a managing director at Valuence, says of the company’s Entrupy usage. For Valuence, Entrupy is seen as a type of insurance they can rely on when their own experts have trouble verifying the product.
Lei says it has become harder for companies like his to look out for superfakes because the counterfeit producers are consistently upping their game. “Sometimes, they even cater for the packaging, and they even do the certificates,” Lei says. “So it’s very difficult really.”
In most cases, Valuence’s Japanese-based authenticators are well placed to verify the goods they have acquired. Lei says goods sent to the company’s headquarters in Japan will go through two rounds of checking by different groups of authenticators.
“According to our records, our mistake [rate] is less than 0.2% every month. Definitely, we will have some mistakes, but it is very low,” adds Lei.
However, companies like Entrupy and Valuence do not refer to superfakes as counterfeits. This is because they are not the manufacturers of the goods themselves, Lei says. Instead, they use terms such as “unqualified” or “unidentified” for goods that do not pass through their checks.
When asked how customers can avoid being duped into buying a superfake, Lei recommends people patronise physical stores and licensed retailers instead of individual sellers online. Though some individual sellers may be selling authentic products, Lei says buyers won’t be able to ascertain if they are actually stolen goods.
“When you buy from an individual online, you are exposing yourself to money laundering or maybe those involved in terror financing,” Lei says.
In a September 2023 article, the nonprofit organisation UL Standards & Engagement (ULSE) found that counterfeits cost the global economy around US$500 billion a year, although the true costs go beyond financial implications.
Another drawback of buying fakes is the harmful chemicals used in making them. “[People] think that buying fake items [means] they’re getting a deal out of it, but they don’t know that if they keep using fake items… every single time they touch it, it’s actually affecting their health,” says Aila Reyes, Apac regional sales manager at Entrupy. “We saw that there was lead, arsenic [and] cadmium on fake items.”
Beyond health risks, Reyes warns that counterfeit items fuel crime. “Buying fakes… is actually giving money to criminals as well. We’ve also heard so many stories about child labour or malpractices just for making counterfeit items.”
Fighting superfakes
There is a lot more that brands can do besides turning to litigation. For one, they can start by managing the ecosystem and strengthening the authentication process, says Insead’s Dubois. This includes introducing product passports, building in serialised components to their products, or even using blockchain technology to allow customers and retailers to authenticate their products across channels.
Bocconi’s Saviolo says brands need to recognise that while scarcity is essential in luxury, scarcity, especially if it looks manufactured, can no longer guarantee desire in the social media era.
“When everything is visible 24/7, replicable, luxury loses its ‘distance,’ its symbolic tension,” she adds. “That’s why brands must rebuild mystery through meaning, not secrecy through marketing as done so far through collaborations or limited editions.”
“The best model that luxury brands can adopt is a ladder,” says Saviolo, adding that brands need to strike a balance between producing “truly scarce icons” that are valued for their craftsmanship while still having “accessible touchpoints” that can bring in new customers and educate them on the brand’s history.
It may be easy to assume that luxury brands are the victims here, but that would be an oversimplification of what’s actually going on. Luxury brands also have a hand in the erosion of their own branding.
“The luxury brands are built on this idea that ‘We are authentic and fakes are fakes.’ But if you dig below the surface and look at a lot of the social practices, environmental practices of luxury brands, you start seeing that they cannot claim the moral high ground,” says IMD’s Girod.
Girod says that top fashion brands, particularly Italian labels like Zegna, Prada, Moncler and Armani, are guilty of “breaching the promise of authenticity” by hiking their prices while producing their goods in lower-cost locations outside Italy, such as in China.
“Who is authentic? Luxury promises that you buy something at a certain price because it’s connected to the local savoir faire in the place of origin,” Girod says.
Luxury brands need to get their fundamentals right if they are looking for a change in fortunes. “A significant part of a luxury product’s value comes from its materials, so telling the story behind the fabrics and the leathers is crucial,” says Bocconi’s Saviolo.
According to Saviolo, Generation Z consumers often say that they care deeply about sustainability. The onus is thus on the luxury brands themselves to educate consumers about the materials they use to make their products and why they are more environmentally friendly than superfakes.
“That’s where real value and true compliance should be assessed and where brands need to be held accountable,” says Saviolo. “It can also make customers think twice about buying superfakes, items that may not only be lower in quality, but potentially even harmful or toxic, especially when it comes to clothing.”
Industry data shows that exclusivity remains important, though brands are increasingly shifting from pure scale to a “relationship-driven” model, says Deloitte’s Sharma.
EY’s Gergele adds that brands should elevate the overall experience through private viewings and invitation-only events, which may appeal to younger consumers who value experiential luxury over mere ownership. That said, he notes that brands will need to strike the right balance between accessibility and scarcity.
“Accessibility allows brands to expand their consumer base and build long-term relationships, while scarcity underpins desirability and protects brand value,” he says. “As both new and established luxury consumers place greater emphasis on meaning, experience and perceived value, managing this balance has become a defining challenge for luxury brands today.”
Ultimately, buying superfakes is a matter of personal choice. Some feel no discomfort, while others are uneasy. Charlotte (not her real name), also from the media industry, believes this comes down to individual preference. “If someone wants to have the illusion of status or wealth to keep up with society’s standards, go for it. I wouldn’t spend thousands on branded bags, but I’d consider a good quality item (or even a replica) without any logo or brand name.”
To her, superfakes are like “buying status without the accompanying price tag”. Furthermore, given the high markup on luxury goods, she believes consumers are paying for the brand rather than the product. Those who appreciate the design can opt for a superfake and enjoy a quality item without the steep price tag.
Lynn, meanwhile, sees a place for superfakes — if they’re well-made and can last a few years. She admits she might have bought one in her youth, but today she would rather invest in an authentic bag for its quality. Superfakes are cheaper, yet still pricey for a fake, a contradiction she struggles to reconcile
