A month ago, there was an article in a leading English daily that #luxury #brands have actually started selling their own counterfeits. As we all know this is the biggest bane for all Luxury goods’ manufacturers, be it watches, handbags, footwear, or fashion apparel. Nowhere is it more apparent than the big LV #logo you see people sporting at airports, malls making me wonder all the time whether it is the genuine stuff or is it fake?

After all luxury goods are so coveted due to the brand. A handbag is a handbag but what makes it so special is the coveted logo.

Statistics show that there are more counterfeit bags across the world than what all the big brands produce together in a legit fashion.

So now if brands themselves counterfeit their own produce what will happen to the brand. After all the sum total of a brand is that aspiration which one has to possess it and the feeling the consumer gets when they actually can afford to buy it. It is that age old feeling of superiority over the rest of the mere mortals which makes a luxury brand what it is. So now if it becomes that affordable, not to mention easily available and everybody and their aunt can actually own it, how long will this brand survive?

Much as it makes business sense for a brand to probably stem the rot of counterfeit by thinking of doing it themselves it is a catch 22 situation from the perspective of the survival of the brand in the long run. After all a luxury brand is one which has a perception of desire, which is just a little out of reach and one that creates a burning desire in the heart to own and flaunt it.

A brand is about emotion finally and not transaction.