How far can counterfeiters go before they completely crack Chanel's code? I would say not too far as long as Chanel is willing to adapt new technology and create a digital registry for each and every single product it produces.
But before blockchain or similar technologies go mainstream in anti-counterfeiting, the secondary market is facing unprecedented challenges from the latest wave of super replicas. Authentication by eye is at the verge of becoming obsolete.
Once upon a time, you can teach yourself to become an authenticator by just Googling. No matter how great a replica was made, the interior hologram sticker is usually the screaming tell-tale. If you have seen real ones, you can sleuth the fake out immediately.
Starting from sometime 2014, there has been a major leapfrog in craftsmanship and detailing in counterfeiting. Below are hologram stickers of some of the upgraded fakes floating in the secondary market, you can see improved fonts, sparkles, cutouts that are much more deceiving than their predecessors.
Today, counterfeiters advertise their craftsmanship, highlighting improvement to threads and stitching details as well as foil stamps which used to be more subtle tell-tales.
From raw material to construction, counterfeiters boast their ability to imitate the real ones to an extreme extent. "It's no longer a replica, it's the same piece at 10% of the price."
Hardware is usually the most difficult part to knock-off but these Boy replicas are getting pretty close.
Factories that are able to produce such high quality replicas should be of considerable size and experience, and probably used to manufacture legit, high quality leather goods for luxury designers, where they gained the know-hows and honed their skills. With this level of hyper growth, I wonder if there is some deeper connections with the "nouveau riche", is it drug money, sex money or gun money?