How to Authenticate Luxury Items for Resale
Samuel Dickison
Intro
Gone are the days when you had to travel to Milan, Paris, or New York to buy a Gucci bag. In fact, you no longer need to buy luxury items directly from fashion houses at all. With the rise of circular economies there is now a booming resale market for luxury items. Many consignment stores are part of the action, offering high-end, authentic goods in an industry that used to be reserved for old toasters and grandpa’s boots. And customers are here for it.
But with the proliferation of luxury goods on the second hand market comes the issue of authentication. If you’re going to charge $500 (or more) for a handbag, you’d better be able to back it up. And on the flip side, selling a fake for a high dollar amount will do significant damage to your credibility. So… how do you tell if something is the real deal? While 100% certain authentication is still often a matter for trained professionals, below we’ll outline some useful principles and practices any store can employ to audit their inventory.
Do Your Homework
First off, if your goal is to sell luxury items consistently, it’s important to become an expert in your field. Credibility has always been a part of high fashion, and the consignment world is no different. A major factor in identifying luxury items accurately is familiarity with the brands—their history, idiosyncrasies, signature details, and unique appeal. When a customer buys a luxury item, there’s an implicit understanding that they’re buying from an expert, or at the very least someone who knows the value of what they are selling.
It’s also important to establish expectations for your customers. While $10 jeans and a $400 handbag may both represent great deals, they’re obviously in different categories. To run a successful luxury retail operation, you’ll need to attract a clientele who knows what they’re looking for and is willing to spend more than the average thrifter to get it.
Be able to answer questions, explain how you know an item is authentic, and demonstrate your trustworthiness to potential buyers.
The Devil’s in the Details
Once you have a foundational understanding of brands, items, and the luxury fashion world, you’ll need to hone your eye for detail. Even as knock-off items get more convincing, it’s still the most obvious attributes that get copied first—logos, shapes, and recognizable patterns. It’s the hard-to-fake details that distinguish the wheat and the chaff.
Although the type of detail you look for will depend largely on specific categories like handbags, sneakers, or jewelry, here are some general guidelines:
Look in the hidden places first. True luxury brands will devote equal attention to linings, interiors, and the less obvious components of their goods. Lift flaps, turn pockets inside out, and look behind labels.
Look for quality construction. Stitching is a major mark of an item’s quality and will usually be the first thing to wear out on a fake.
Look for quality material. As a rule of thumb, high end goods tend to be made of natural material—i.e. something that was once alive. Leather, wool, and silk are far more common in luxury items than polyester and plastic.
Examine the hardware. Buckles, snaps, zippers, and rivets are all highly precise components, and places where many luxury brands flex. Check for weight, feel, and uniqueness when it comes to metal.
Get familiar with signature details. Whether it’s the Burberry plaid, the Gucci horse bit, or the RRL obsession with vintage Americana, every luxury brand has its own iconic flavor. A knowledge of specifics, eras, and collections will help you quickly weed out imposters.
Look at the text. Whether it’s a laundry label, a “Made In-” stamp, or a brand name, sloppy or inconsistent type is often a sign of fakery.
Check for a serial number. This is more common for watches, jewelry, and handbags, but if there is a serial number that can fast track your investigation.
As with all aspects of running a business, experience is invaluable. Sometimes you’ll get an easy win—an item with original packaging, tags, or even a certificate of authenticity. But nothing trains your eye as well as frequent reps on the less obvious cases. Bear with it, keep doing your homework, and get the real deal in your hands as often as possible.
Online and 3rd Party Help
Even when you’re confident in your judgement, there will still be times when rare or perplexing items come across your counter. In those cases—depending on the scale and scope of your operation—it may be worthwhile to enlist 3rd party tools for authentication. And as the secondary luxury market has grown, so have online services to verify handbags, shoes, watches, and jewelry. Sites like Mercari, Entrupy, and Real Authentication offer expert analysis for a fee.
While this may be impractical for every item, or for those on the lower end of the spectrum, it can be great insurance for potentially high-value pieces, or as confirmation while you’re still learning the ropes. And of course, the cost of a professional analysis will always be less than the reputational harm of selling a fake.
A Brave New World of Provenance
While authentication is still a largely human skill, technology is quickly becoming a major tool.
In the last few years many luxury brands have stepped up their own internal, high-tech efforts to authenticate goods and prove their provenance. The EU has begun implementing requirements for digital product passports, and brands are beginning to use everything from QR codes on labels to hidden, smart-phone-scannable NFC (Near-Field Communication) chips that prove authenticity. Even blockchain has come into play, with the likes of Tiffany & Co., Prada, and Bvlgari using the technology to ward off counterfeits.
So while older items will still rely on human judgement, newer ones will likely be easier and much quicker to verify. Of course, part of the appeal of luxury goods is their exclusivity and the mystery and aura that surround them, so don’t count on them becoming too accessible. But the loupe is already being replaced by the app. And at the end of the day, the more confident a customer is that they’re getting the real thing, the happier they’ll be to open their wallet.
