Snide gear

A snowHead

How much ski clothing is counterfeit now ?

I believe Spyder, North Face, Arcteryx and even Columbia is faked and sold on.

Obviously high prices are a tempting target, though Columbia stuff is not that expensive.

Anyone know of other brands ?

Leaving aside questions of legality, is the snide gear of reasonable quality or complete rubbish ?

If you pay £70 for a faked £350 jacket, it may not be goretex etc., but will it be serviceable for skiing for a year or two ?

A snowHead

A rugby jersey will be serviceable for skiing but if the weather turns to s**t can't see it being a whole lot of fun.

Stick to the real thing and buy from a reputable place. They all do sales at some point so its not unheard of for a jacket worth £350 to come down to under £250, then get 5 years out of it and be warm and dry.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

kiwi1, We are not talking about rugby shirts or £250 jackets.

Knock offs are much cheaper than that.

If they are as good as, say, the old C&A ski clothing range they would be worthy of consideration and they would not have 'Rodeo' or 'EVF' labels on them either.

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Maybe it would last for a few years... my BIL brought some golf shirts back from Penang that looked great but soon fell ap
art but for 4$Aus this was not an issue ... Laughing

Maybe some of the gear is made on the one for NF or whoever and one for me...but there would have to be colusion on the amount of fabric they account for, I'd have thought.

All those names you have mentionhed are now High St labels so it might be worth cloning them but I wouldn't want to pay £70 or so... I think Gore-tex is the best all round fabric...not withstanding the waterproof/breathabilty arguement, so I'd want it mostly.
Softshell is a marketing option and we have been here before. Polycotton is far more breathable than Gore-tex...until you waterproof it and then it loses out to GT badly. What do you want in a piece of kit..?

Personally if I wore a Rolex, it would be a Rolex and there is a reason that the clones are crap....I am not saying that an Oyster is neccesarily worth £1800, tho'. The same goes for fabics that are designed to do a job..

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

JT, I do not think fake Lacostes, that immediate shrink to half size in the wash, would be the same as a ski jacket.

I just think it is possible to make serviceable ski jackets for less. I am sure there is a huge mark up on a £350 jacket.

I reckon if you could acquire a few metres of Goretex, or any other decent cloth, and take a photo to Thailand, they would sell you a made to measure jacket for a fraction of what you would pay in the UK.

You would be best able to judge by handling the merchandise and checking it against the genuine article though.

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Latchigo,

That might work... taking the plane fare into consideration etc etc... for a one off type of thing...but

It is one of the reasons I try to buy kit made in Europe or the US which has a Western labour charge to it... I can then understand why they are getting on for that sort of money. I bought my Edier XCR mainly because it was made in France, plus it was everything I wanted in a jacket. Now, you would be hard pushed to find most jackets not made in the Pacific rim...why, because they cost nothing - by comparisson - to make...so the BIG profit goes to the Label. At least when they were made in France or the UK... they paid the operator a western wage.

A can of worms, I know, but sooner or later the EU will show its hand and have to be the protectionist trade barrier it was always going to be. You can't outsource everything, else you'll never have any workers at home. But no, I don't want to go there, atm..

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

In the clothing business, a manufacturer will be given, by the designer/label, a quantity of fabric slightly more than the amount required to complete the order. Usually between 2 and 5 per cent extra. So a run of 1000 garments will produce an extra 10 to 25 garments. The designer will recieve 1000 garments, the left over (called cabbage in the trade) goes 'who knows where' but under no circumstances will it have the original designers name in it. Get hold of this 'cabbage' and it will be exactly the same as the designer garment.

After all it is free

I don't think I could ski seriously in a jacket with "cabbage" written on it... wink

Some named brand stuff is made badly enough, let alone fakes

Is there some sort of Veblen effect at play though ? The more you charge, the more a certain type of consumer will want the goods you are selling. This could be due to brand cachet or they may equate high price with technical superiority.

If the same people who make the brands make the fakes as a sideline, then quality would not be such a big issue.

I do not know, as I have not seen enough fakes to compare to the genuine article. C&A stuff was usually sound. It just had a naff image.

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Latchigo, I'm surprised that you would support the sale of drugs, and organised crime by buying counterfeit gear.

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Kramer, Tell us more.

Are you saying all snide gear is sold by drug cartels ?

I know if you go to Thailand with a photo the little tailor shops will copy any item of clothing you care to name. They even keep your measurements for future mail order purchases. I know they are independent and, as far as I know, they are not connected to organised crime. I have never actually been there myself and, as JT points out, it is a long way to go for a ski jacket -unless you are there for other reasons.

I suppose those current cinema release DVDs with oriental subtitles and shaky camera work may be produced by organised crime but I do not know much more - other than which pubs to buy them from.

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I can see what Latchigo is saying... you can get quite a suit knocked up in 24 hrs in the Pacific rim...
so its only the materials that you need...they have the cheap expertise.

You know it makes sense.

would you want a jecket etc that lasted more then 2 seasons.

Im thinkingall in one flu green, pink etc.

would you realy want to be wearing it more then one or two seasons anyway.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

It certainly ain't gonna be 200 stitches/inch (Arc'teryx) and may well be slightly asymmetric wink

A snowHead

I picked up a SOS on Ebay, for the price I paid for it, i am sure it is counterfit. To get a full eVent jacket for 70.00 US shipped, unlikely, but I will wear it for as long as it lasts.

A snowHead

How much of this stuff is a true knock off and how much of it is original but either discount warehoused and/or fell off the back of a delivery truck somewhere?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

i got my quicksilver jacket from tkmaxx, £80. RRP £250

and my billabong trousers £40, rrp £115.

Toofy Grin

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OK so on this subject does anyone know where t get a Zermatt Spyder jacket for an affordable price? I'm not paying £400 for a jacket! Secondly, how do you tell if it's a fake?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

fatirishman, Have you tried ebay ?

There is Spyder stuff there. It may not be the particular garment you are after though.

As regards spotting a fake, buyers often ask sellers questions. The better sellers claim to have sold a lot of gear over a long time. Make of that what you will.

I have seen some Spyder stuff going for £200. At that price I would not be interested in eBay though.

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E.g

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=013&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=230078573374&rd=1&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=013&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=230078097119&rd=1&rd=1

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=012&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=220065485652&rd=1&rd=1

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Liquidated stock is often worth looking out for. I've just bought my OH an unused Bonfire Optic T10 jacket from a seller in the US - it's costing me just over £50 delivered compared with triple normally. At the moment I've no reason to doubt the seller. There's no indication that it's "snide", but if I find it is then the seller will be dealt with!
Here are some details from the listing:

After all it is free

fatirishman, we used to import australian coats & hats - and the fake ones, i.e. made in india/china as copies had really cheap poppers & zips - so I would say, if it is a really good copy (as the chinese ones are) look at the stuff inside; stitching, zips, poppers. All the clever stuff is in the outside appearance.

rpft, waxed stockman coats?

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Cheers guys. I think I'm doing another season in my 8 year old battered Columbia jacket. So people take the Mick...... stuff 'em I can ski!. I've gotta love the way the one ski suit is described as a S.P,Y.D.E,R jacket and trousers! Some of the others there I'd nearly be minded were kosher, but then again $650 for the new version how on earth can you sell the same for $200. Doesn't make sense.

I did actually get a new pair of Columbia ski trousers in TK Maxx, and they're definately OK!

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petemillis, yes, waxed & teflon coated! plus all the riding gear - saddles etc.,

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I thought this was going to be an advert for someone selling cheap snide gear and am now somewhat disappointed Sad

the above post might have been a joke btw lol

professorpool, What are you after ? Very Happy

You know it makes sense.

The Helly Hansen outlet shops are very good for cheap ski gear, and they run the shops themselves so you know its all genuine. I've paid £40 for a jacket that retailed in Ellis Brigham or Snow & Rock (can't remember which) for nearly £200, and also got a £150 pair af Salopettes for £30 about 6 years ago... Even though tey're getting aibt tatty I still wear the salopettes now despite having purchased a kosher pair of O'Neill ski pants, and a pair of Spyder ski pants (in the end of season sales I hasten to add), both of which I've subsequently sold on ebay after just one weeks skiing in them. TKMaxx also good if you fall lucky. Kitted out my three daughters for new year this year for about £60 each for jacket and trousers, plus socks.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

It's pretty pointless asking about the quality of counterfeit goods. The quality is going to be completely random, depending entirely on who made it and what they made it with. The chances of it being equal in quality to the item copied are virtually zero. If you buy the real thing, you are effectively buying yourself reputation and quality control. It's one thing buying fake T-shirts, but I wouldn't want to be out in a -30 deg blizzard wearing a fake ski jacket.

A snowHead

SnowGod, also worth looking at is M and M Direct www.mandmdirect.com . We buy loads of stuff from them and they often have good prices on some HH and Berghaus stuff. And Oakley stuff comes up pretty often.

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