That may be true, but it still sidesteps the whole "they're committing fraud" thing.
It's not like LVMH or the glitterati that shop in the back room of an Hermés boutique are the ones who get hurt, either. It's the indie designers and the normal people who save up to buy something nice for themselves who pay for it.
the fakes are produced without any supply-chain transparency, so there’s no-one to pressure over using sweatshops, non-renewable materials, toxic production chemicals.
but hey, pretty bag is cheaper, that’s what mattered?
if you want to stop humans wanting the pretty bag at all, good luck. that’s a hiding to nothing, right there.
My extended family is responsible for manufacturing a selection of these "luxury" goods, for the official brands. Unfortunately, the supply chain is not quite as clean and ethical as you envisage... Sweatshops are involved in the production of the $20k bags too (or at least the subcomponents).
Well, I'm not claiming they are all ethical (although many are); I said that transparency provides leverage to demand improvement, and I'll double down on that by pointing out that real improvement has occurred through exactly these means in sectors from the rag trade to consumer electronics. So, that’s not an effective counterexample, quite the opposite: you’ve identified a specific case that activists could lean on.
This is how the world becomes a better place, through transparency enabled by authenticity. Pleas for for everyone to be less materialistic have never moved the needle one iota, but an appeal to ethics is a superficial measure that nevertheless has systemic consequences.
I'm not a lawyer, but this just seems like a different kind of fraud - two parties knowingly engaged in a transaction involving counterfeit products, where the victim is the original designer rather than the buyer.
