I carry a fake Louis Vuitton handbag on occasion. I got it in Hong Kong for $5 in a street market hawking a variety of goods. Tonight I happened to have it at my side, as I often do, whilst having a cocktail at the Bar on Castro. I sat down by myself to enjoy a moment watching people when a man standing up leans in to inspect my bag.
"It's very fake," I readily admit. It doesn't really look real - it's one of the brown check bags and the real version has the designer's name written on every other block.
The man standing gives me a snooty look and responds with a French accent, "I know it's fucking fake. I work for fucking Louis Vuitton."
Annoyed, I smile and respond pleasantly but forcefully. "Well that was nice and snotty." He sneers and leans in to the woman he was talking with, "At least he's forward."
He eyes me for a quick moment and says directly, "You know little children fucking made that bag." I try to respond and question whether his employer was so innocent when it came to sweatshops, but he wasn't interested in that conversation. With a forced smile and a handshake, he was gone.
Okay - I admit readily that my fake bag was, indeed, probably made under dubious circumstances. I bought the bag in a market chock full of various imiation goods in Southeast Asia. It's bound to have come from a factory employing people under less-than-pleasant settings. I understood this when I bought it.
The politics of that sale are complicated. It's likely that the woman I bought it from was not an owner of a sweatshop, but a struggling woman trying to make a living who bought the bags from a middle person that runs between the factories and the hawkers. Were I to not buy the bag, the woman would be out $5. I didn't negotiate the price as is standard practice there - I felt silly trying to knock $0.50 off a bag I clearly could afford.
Was I indirectly supporting sweatshops? Yes. Is every person in the US at one time or another bound to indirectly support sweatshops? Certainly. It's nearly impossible to live a consumer life free from interaction with goods with questionable origins.
Moreover, I had to wonder if I had been sitting at the bar with an actual real Louis Vuitton, would that have made a better statement? Somehow I question the sanctity of a handbag no larger than a soccer ball that costs upwards of $1000. Whose pockets do those sales fill? It's clear that the salesperson who was so offended by my bag is not the person benefitting from a given sale. Maybe they get commision - but that's not where the real money's made. Nor is it the person who spent time constructing the bag by hand. It's at the top. Corporate suits.
I thought it strange that salespeople at stores like Louis Vuitton feel so entitled to a class status that is obviously not connected to their actual incomes. This is true for any upscale retailer. They pay their employees crap, but they pay them to act like they're fashionistas with money. I doubt the man who turned his nose at me was really able to afford any of the merchandise he sold himself.
Class is a funny thing. For a lot of Americans, it's all show. People barely scraping by can go out and buy an Isaac Misrahi at Target and a used BMW - surrounding themselves in goods that make it seem as if they are actually living a life of luxury. The truth of the matter is, though, that if they were laid off and spent a month unemployed they would lose their shirt (not to mention their house). As decently paying blue collar jobs continue to move offshore, only to be replaced by minimum wage service industry jobs, more Americans are going to find this to be their reality.
In any case, I know that I'm playing into that facade by carrying my Fouis. Clearly I can't afford the real thing. Mine doesn't even look real. For me - that wasn't the issue. It was a cute, functional accessory. But just by carrying the bag - for those who recognize it -I'm saying something else as well about my class and social status. It's complicated and I can't quite sort it all out here at 5 AM. Thoughts?
