1. Weight
As soon as you hold the bag, you can feel that it is not heavy. Many of the fake handbags look just like the original but they weigh as much as Britney post-Federline. Luxury handbags are made for comfort, they are light yet gorgeous. You do not want to look like you are carrying a stone as you stroll down Rodeo Drive for sure.

2. Smell
When you have a leather bag, the smell should be very settle. Many of the sellers for the fakes tell you to smell the bag while you can actually smell it from miles away. It is too strong. Luxury handbags are not like these at all. Most of the time, you even have to stick your nose on the bag to smell it.

3. Texture
Luxury handbags have a very nice texture. It is very smooth and very flexible. Every step of the production has gone through a tremendous amount of quality control to make sure every cut is flawless. Real leather costs a fortune but processes like embossment can take you to the heaven of croc and ostrich bags with fewer charges on your Visa. The process imitates print, commonly reptiles, onto surface of alternative leather such as lambskin. On fake bags, the textures are usually even and uniformed. Luxury handbags display a very organic texture, it looks, feels and hard to tell apart from the real one.

4. Logo
These brands put their logo on the buttons, studs, buckle, feet, zipper heads, also on the outside of the bag and the inside. The logo is done neatly, proportionally and not tacky.

5. Zipper
A lot of the luxury handbags have special zippers. If you look at the back of the zipper head, they have a coding. Bally has “riri M8” for most of its main zipper, but not for the inside pockets ones. If not coding, they have numbers on them, different numbers for different size of the zipper.

6. Spelling
Of course the real bags will definitely have a prefect spelling. Notice how fake bags are often spelled differently using similar letters. Gucci to Cucci, or Missoni to Msonni.

7. Lining
The luxury handbags mostly stitch their logo and drawings on the lining, not printed like on the fakes. Although some of fake bags also have stitched logo. They are also taking the whole nine yards in using leather for the lining.

8. Stitching
I personally think this is the best way to spot the real one from the fake. Luxury handbags come from excellent craftsmanship that the stitches are very neatly done. You should not see any stray thread, uneven stitches, visible stitches between connected parts of the bags, or the knot from the thread. They are also done in one direction. If one line goes towards the left then the line aligned to that one is also towards the left.

9. Prints on the body
Any prints on the bag should be done neatly. It is not pixilated, jagged, or looking like it is a rub-on letters on the bag. I would call it is like tattooed on.

10. Details
Any details are on its best condition. Should there be a diamond, it sparkles. If they have a bullhorn, it looks just like a real one. No excess glue on the edges. Every lock and zipper works on every bag and the metals are all smooth and shiny. No seam on the bag handle should be exposed.

So we can see, all the money that we spend go toward all these hard work. And the hard work shows on every little detail of that Prada you take down the red carpet.

Although it is not as glamorous as Chanel and I have not seen Jessica Simpson wearing it, I found the Matchpoint 2008 collection from White Capri to be so beautiful. White Capri (whitecapri.com) is a Berlin based company. The design is very simple, inspired by a Woody Allen movie, Matchpoint. Some of the bags actually look like a tennis skirt. I can wear it to both formal occation and a drink with friends. I do not think that I will find the collection to be ripped of at some fake market. But if I own this, I know it is unique, I will not compete with a bunch of other people in People's Square wearing the fake ones and it is worth every penny.

Author: Admira Pustika ( Want to become a Handbag Correspondent? )

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