From the notorious Dapper Dan to the dodgy Canal St traders of NY and Guangzhou knock-shops, there is another area where the two worlds mingle freely and that is the counterfeit biz. Since bootleggers are drawn to the easiest path to the dollar, it is Nike and Vuitton that suffer the most from this chronic scourge. Wikipedia has an uncited statistic that suggests that less than 1% of LV branded goods being made are authentic, which is ironic as their ubiquitous monogram was originally intended to suppress counterfeiting.
This crossover is even more perverse when the two brands are frankensteined together in the fake factories, such as when the LV pattern was slapped all over Nikes some years back. Even relatively well educated sneakerheads still think some of these fake Air Force Ones were legit! On top of that, illicit Gucci, LV and Nike (but not adidas for some reason) are often sold on the exact same bootleg sites, side by side. This is one certain giveaway that the product you are looking at is fake-ass-shit. There isn’t a retailer in the world who jams these brands together, but somehow in cyberspace, old fashioned common sense does not apply.
A few years back, a project initiated by Junya Watanabe (of Japanese label Commes Des Garcon) developed a concept for Nike that can be considered hugely influential, possibly one of the simplest and neatest product ideas of the decade. Watanabe’s brief remade the earliest Nike runners for his runway show by adding a fake patina at the factory that gave them the appearance of 30 year old vintage models. Glue drips, yellow soles, weathered suede and scuffed panels gave the nylon runners a stunning sense of fake history. Since then almost every sports brand has copied the idea, which in this game is the sincerest form of flattery as we all know.
