168 MALL IN DIVISORIA

When it comes to shopping, my sister-in-law in New York will sometimes suffer from momentary lapse of reason, though her overall sense of kindness and lack of malice give her license for it.

Take for example the incident last week. As if trying to beat the local time zone’s break of dawn, she called me on my cellphone. She wanted to know what the deal was with this 168 Mall in Divisoria that she keeps hearing about from her recent balikbayan friends.

Groggily, I told her this mall has stores that sell knockoff name brand merchandise from China at dirt-cheap prices. When she asked how the distributors and retailers are able to make any profit, I replied in jest that they were merchandise skimmed off the top portion of humongous shipping containers; that these counterfeit products are primarily used to camouflage the more valuable stuff at the bottom — shabu; otherwise known as crystal meth in New York. But I was wise enough to quickly retract what I had just told her, though there were rumors alleging smuggling at the heart of this mall’s operations.

She is an accountant and has worked at various companies in the fashion industry and cognizant of the adverse affects of this flood of fake products in the U.S. — from the fifteen-dollar Hermes scarf to fifty-dollar Prada clutch bags from China and Korea. And despite the authorities' efforts, smuggled knockoffs remain to be a multi-million dollar headache for both the government and the garment industry.

As a proactive solution, some design houses have created a separate division from within their own organization that would use the same exact patterns of their collection and reproduce them with cheaper fabrications. The result: same look but cheaper prices to be sold at their “outlet stores.” In tony suburbs across America, there are now shopping malls which specifically cater to these designer outlet shops — stores for knockoff items produced by the same companies that created the originals.

The New York Times article, "Fashion’s Cutthroat Edge," provides a rare glimpse into this dilemma and features a blogsite, Counterfeit Chic, which shows just how maddening this counterfeit situation has become. According to this article, the blog site’s author, Ms. Scafidi, an associate law professor at Methodist University, “posts one or two items to which she lends some in-depth, knowledgeable commentary. And each week, she posts a long list of newsy links to articles and blog posts from across the globe about police stings, internecine industry battles and efforts by both governments and fashion houses to somehow stem the flood of knockoffs.”

The success of Divisoria’s 168 Mall is fueled by the government’s lack of stringent efforts to battle the influx of counterfeit products into the local market, as well as by the consumers’ minimal disposable income yet fascination with status-setting designer merchandise, though fake the items may be. It's the "counterfeit chic phenomenon;" buying one of these items for the look and fun of it — until disposed of for another shopping spree.

My sister-in-law is one who appreciates the quality and durability of authentic designer goods — and willing to pay for it, or I should say patient enough to wait until they go on sale, if ever. Her attitude has always been, when she gets tired of them, they would still be in good enough condition to pass on or donate to her church — which could end up in one of those ukay-ukay shops in Bambang. But I opted not to tell her about this new crop of shops that have become popular to local shoppers. I was still sleepy and dying to end our phone conversation by then.

Basically from the same distributor, fake name brand sneakers being sold outside in the streets of Divisoria, as well as inside the 168 Mall.