Miuccia Prada's Terrible Secret

How To Buy And Sell Fake Handbags

We are loving "Deluxe," the book about how the luxury market went mass market by Dana Thomas, Newsweek's culture and fashion writer in Paris. Today's excerpt concerns the counterfeit market, from the suburban housewives who sell the goods to their friends at purse parties to the gangs of New York who actually move the merchandise. Obligatory pimping: "Deluxe," published by The Penguin Press, arrives August 16th.

Purse-party ladies are the drug dealers of the counterfeit trade: they buy from the wholesalers and sell to suburban users, folks with a craving for the goods but not enough dough for the real thing. Like teenagers gathering at a friend's upper-middle-class home to buy a couple of joints with their allowance or babysitting money, suburban women converge in well appointed rooms for wine, hors d'oeuvres, gossip, and fake Vuitton or Gucci handbags. The women hosting these fetes will make a killing—they double their investment—and never declare it to the IRS. Take Virginia Topper, the wife of a lawyer in Long Island, New York. When she was busted in 2003, she had $60,000 in cash stashed in her underwear drawer and a Jaguar in the driveway. She was found guilty and sentenced to community service. "She was the ultimate Amway lady," [New York security expert Andrew] Oberfeldt laughed.

Are Birkin Bags The Root Of Evil?

In "Deluxe," Dana Thomas, Newsweek's culture and fashion writer in Paris, writes about how the luxury market went mass market. In this little excerpt, she looks at the swelling and obsessive handbag market—and takes a trip to an Hermes workshop. (By the way, the book is blurbed by both Fareed Zakaria and Richard Johnson! Crazy.) "Deluxe," published by The Penguin Press, arrives August 16th.

Handbags are the engine that drives luxury brands today. According to annual consumer surveys conducted by Coach each year, the average American woman purchased two new handbags a year in 2000; by 2004, that number was more than four. At Louis Vuitton's immense four-floor global store in Tokyo, 40 percent of all sales are made in the first room, which sells only monogram handbags, wallets, and other small leather goods.