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“You have to look at the smallest details — the stitching, the weight of the thread,” says Fashionphile master authenticator Alison Young, pointing to the interlocking “CC” logo on the inside of a classic black Chanel flap bag on screen. As spotting fakes becomes more difficult, Young explains, she has to pay attention “to every component”.
Young is leading one of the American luxury resale site’s virtual “Fashionphile University” authentication workshops, which is part of their in-house training program. This particular workshop is focused on Chanel bags — one of the most popular items on the site. The handbag in question is worth £8,530 brand new; resale prices vary depending on the condition, but one is currently available on Fashionphile for £6,500.
At these prices, ensuring counterfeits do not pass through the site is of top priority for Fashionphile. “It really is of primary importance to protect brand integrity,” says founder and president Sarah Davis. “It’s really the primary reason [people] come to us. They trust us to be able to buy these very expensive things and they trust that they’re going to be authentic.”
Over the past couple of years, luxury resale platforms and brands have been working to improve their authentication processes in response to more sophisticated counterfeits. The issue came under the spotlight again last week when Chanel won its case against What Goes Around Comes Around (WGACA) over the resale of counterfeit bags and items that were not made for sale, such as those for display only.
“Such infringements hurt consumers and harm the Chanel goodwill and brand, because they are likely to confuse the public as to the nature of the Chanel-branded items they are purchasing,” a Chanel spokeswoman said in a statement following the verdict. While WGACA denies that counterfeit goods were sold on the site, experts agree that the ruling will have implications for authentication processes and make it more costly for luxury resellers to operate.
The global fashion and luxury resale market swelled by 28 per cent year-on-year to reach an estimated $43 billion in 2022 — growing 1.3 times faster than the primary market, per McKinsey (2023 data is not yet available). Meanwhile, “a staggering $50 billion is lost annually to counterfeiters, perpetuating an epidemic that shows no signs of abating,” say Elise Whang and Emily Erkel, founders of pre-owned luxury wholesale platform LePrix.
“Anything that becomes highly coveted will ultimately in turn be highly counterfeited. For example, the Christian Dior Book Tote became highly popular, and in turn, we saw the marketplace flood with both high and low-grade counterfeit models almost overnight,” say Jenna Padilla and Anastacia Black, founders of third-party service provider Real Authentication.
Resale’s market leaders are investing heavily in authentication. According to Vestiaire Collective’s website, it employs 140 experts in this field, including 50 in quality control and 90 in digital and physical authentication. Fashionphile employs 30 certified authenticators in different specialities, including gemologists and watchmakers, and in its 25-year history over 50 employees have completed Fashionphile University training to reach master authenticator level. The RealReal doesn’t disclose exact numbers, but a spokesperson confirms it employs hundreds of authenticators. And yet, counterfeits continue to flood the market. Can luxury brands trust the process?
“The sheer volume of items circulating through these channels, and the recurrent cycle of consumer use and resale, heightens the risk of counterfeit products slipping through undetected,” says Kayla Marci, senior retail analyst at retail intelligence platform Edited.
Training challenges
Young joined Fashionphile in 2016 from a real-estate background. In her eight years at Fashionphile, she has personally authenticated over 100,000 handbags, including 20,000 Chanel handbags and accessories.
The process plays close attention to all the different components of the handbag, from the font style, stitching and hardware, to the construction. An X-ray fluorescence machine (XRF) tests the metals, while another custom X-ray machine catches intricate details on how the hardware is fused to the bag. The team then compares the items to its documented inventory.
While technology supports the process, human intelligence is at the core of the business because brands are constantly changing their products, says Davis. “When Chanel releases a brand-new textile or hardware or font, as they do, there is zero technology that’s going to help you authenticate that item. That’s going to take our team.”
The RealReal’s authenticators must undergo 40 hours of training and daily ongoing coaching. New starters who complete the Fashionphile University course are required to log 1,000 to 1,500 hours of training, which includes one-to-one sessions with master authenticators. The latter have at least 8,000 hours of authentication under their belts. However, there are no global regulations or standards when it comes to training authenticators working in resale platforms.
Meanwhile, the volume of products on resale sites is quickly rising and counterfeits are becoming harder to detect. “Authenticators working for major resellers are under huge pressure to review a minimum quota of items daily,” says Elin Switz, founder of luxury sourcing service and consultancy Maastic, who has worked with clients including Fashionphile, Vestiaire Collective and Sotheby’s. She says this “quantity-over-quality system” often results in a quick decision-making process for items that require more time. “Junior or entry-level authenticators are being given critical luxury brands too early,” she adds. “[Those brands] require far more knowledge and time.”
“The platforms need to acknowledge that for luxury products, trust is essential, therefore a strong authentication process is needed, with experts on the brand or the brand itself,” says Joëlle Grunberg, partner of McKinsey’s retail, fashion and luxury practice.
How tech is transforming authentication
Authentication is an uphill battle for resale sites. Where once fakes were obvious, today they can be virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. “There are now higher quality fakes across a wider breadth of designers than there used to be, and ‘super fakes’ can be tricky,” says Rachel Vaisman, VP of merchandising operations at The RealReal.
Charis Marquez, VP of global fashion at Ebay, concurs. “As interest in high-value luxury goods continues to grow, fakes become increasingly sophisticated.” Ebay has been gradually rolling out its authenticity guarantee to multiple categories, such as in-demand handbags, sneakers and streetwear.
This is where technology comes in, say experts. “There will always be the possibility for human error when verifying the authenticity of a piece,” points out Chelsea Henriquez, content creator and secondhand shopping advocate. “Even the most-trained eye could let a really good counterfeit slip through from time to time.”
“The elevated quality of replicas increases the risk of human error, underscoring the necessity of pairing expert knowledge with AI,” says Edited’s Marci. “The absence of robust digital authentication methods or AI jeopardises this valuable expertise and poses a risk to the integrity of timeless products and their creators.”
The rapid progression of AI technology over the past couple of years is a game changer, some say. “AI has already transformed authentication. Many tens of millions of items have been certified using AI, adding trust in many parts of the collectibles and luxury goods spaces,” says Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder of luxury authentication platform Entrupy.
“Integrating AI into luxury authentication not only enhances security and accuracy, but also has the potential to streamline processes, especially as the resale market rapidly expands,” says Marci.
However, Fashionphile doesn’t see AI ever replacing human authenticators. “AI requires an enormous amount of data to train the tool, and you’ve got no data on something you’ve only seen one of,” says Davis. “Alison [Young] and her team see items every day that they’ve never seen before; that will always reoccur with brands producing new changes seasonally.”
Digital IDs are also expected to help luxury brands trace their products after the point of sale. Starting as early as 2026, the European Commission will require brands selling in the EU to equip items with digital product passports.
British luxury brand Mulberry is among those to have unveiled plans to add IDs to all of its products in the coming years. “The technology remains valuable for luxury retailers to create digital passports for physical goods using unique characteristics and metadata within the blockchain, making them a traceable, unique asset that’s unable to be altered, which will provide authentication, prevent counterfeiting and track purchase histories if resold,” says Marci.
Fashionphile believes this is more likely than AI to transform authentication. “It would be as easy as scanning a bag, because you’d be able to verify the information on that chip,” says Davis.
Working together, building trust
Improving training and investing in AI and digital IDs will help improve the accuracy of authentication, but experts say brands and resale platforms must form closer relationships if they are to stamp out counterfeits.
While luxury fashion houses hold so much history and heritage, they are often unwilling to share this with the resale market, says Davis. “Brands have so much information, so much history and heritage that they could share, but that’s not something they’ve ever been willing to do.”
Following the court ruling against WGACA, the Chanel spokesperson acknowledged the importance of partnership. “Secondhand platforms — when they operate with transparency about the Chanel-branded items they sell, and cooperate with law enforcement and Chanel — can help in the fight against counterfeiting,” the statement read.
Things are improving, but a trust issue remains. “We have had more conversations with the brands in the last five years than we did in the prior 20 combined,” says Fashionphile’s Davis. “Brands are now recognising that if you help us, we can help you. We would love nothing more than to work directly with the brands. It’s just really [about] the brand’s openness to do the same.”
Above all, trust is everything. Experts predict a doubling down on authentication following the Chanel trial, as resale sites scrabble to prove their guarantees are worth the paper they’re written on. “Brands sue more when counterfeits proliferate, and as a result, platforms tend to pay more attention and look for ways to better police the market and reassure the consumer through authenticated goods, either through internal experts or with the support of the brands,” says McKinsey’s Grunberg. “Building trust with the consumer is key to success for these platforms.”
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