Shoppers in poor countries deliberately seek out counterfeit designer goods, which are perceived as being better-manufactured than the legitimate goods.
Nina Laurie, from the department of geography at Newcastle University, said often the quality of the counterfeit clothing was as good or sometimes better than the original, and less than 10% of the price. Very often it was the cheapest clothing available because it was mass-produced in such large quantities…
"In fact, they are not replicas at all but originals designed for the local market but with a designer label included because otherwise they would not sell," Dr Laurie said.
She had watched a young man operating a laptop computer from a car battery in a tin shack while he downloaded logos from the internet, traced them, and began man ufacturing designer labels for local factories.
(Thanks, Maf!)
