Anyone who spends a reasonable amount of time checking out fashion sites on-line will have seen the plethora of banner ads pushing heavily discounted Christian Louboutin shoes. I’ve been a fashion editor for long enough to know that these sites are selling fakes, as Christian Louboutin control the distribution of their product extremely carefully and don’t sell to no-name third party sites.
I get a significant amount of email from readers asking if these ads are genuine and my response is always the same: Christian Louboutin don’t have an e-commerce site, so any site using a domain name that includes the words Christian Louboutin that isn’t the official www.christianlouboutin.com is presumably selling badly-made, mass production fakes.
Last month I was extremely surprised to see an ad for what were presumably fake Louboutins being served on Cathy Horyn’s On the Runway blog page on The New York Times website and only today, whilst catching up on fashionweekdaily’s excellent Daily Front Row blog, I saw yet another Google ad banner pushing purported deep discount Louboutins. When I clicked through the shoes were being sold through a third party in Cyprus and manufactured in Guangzhou, China. *
The Christian Loubouton press office in London emailed me today to say,
“We make no shoes in Asia. There is no factory in China that can sell legitimate shoes to anyone as we do not use any factories in China.”
Although the company has put in place a comprehensive program to deal with the sites and sources offering fake product, by monitoring eBay and social networks, using Copyright law and by working closely with Customs, Web Hosting Service Providers, Google and other search engines to identify the sellers of fake Louboutin shoes, it is clear, from my experience above, that companies like Google are not doing enough to stop serving the ads that drive traffic to the counterfeit sites.
It is unforgivable that Google Ads would serve these ads to legitimate, respected fashion news sites, which leads to the implication that those sites are giving tacit approval to the counterfeit sites, which is not, and never would be the case.
Google: step up.
These counterfeit sites threaten Christian Louboutin’s business and the business of their distributors. As the press office told me, “We are losing sales and we are suffering a great harm in terms of brand image as poor quality fake products are bearing our logo.”
Louboutin have launched a complementary website www.stopfakechristianlouboutin.com which has a frequently updated list of websites that they have identified as selling fakes and lets us know what action is being taken against the counterfeiters.
* Added at 1620hrs. Just went to Slate.com to read an article, and they are also currently serving presumably fake Christian Louboutin ads, via Google.
If you love fashion, don’t buy counterfeit goods, whether Louboutin, Rolex, Vuitton or any of the other prevalent knock-offs. There is nothing clever about buying fake goods, the profits of which go to fund organised crime, drug trafficking, prositution, child labour and sweatshops.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
I think the whole point about owning Louboutins is one the thrill of owning the real thing, the luxury of them and two and more importantly they are the most comfortable and well balanced shoes that I own. You would not want fakes.. I totally support this exposure of fake goods xx
I am glad you are speaking up against fakes, now that Versace won $20 million from counterfeiters in Los Angeles court it should be easier to prosecute.
Got my first pair from Harper in Ireland and LOVE!!!! them
http://www.harperbelfast.com
Oh dear, cannot believe that so many folks buy fakes. Good on you. Glad youlooked into it.
Thank you so much for this informative post. It is bad enough that such places exist to sell fake and knock off merchandise, but it is far worse that Google would place these ads on legitimate fashion blogs and websites.
I don’t know what possesses people to buy fake designer items.
I cannot afford to spend money on Louboutin or Chanel, but I would rather go naked than wear a fake! It leaves no thrill, no excitement. And it’s tacky.
I blogged about this last year when I noticed the ads popping up on legitimate websites. Its so shady of Google to accept the ads from these places as one look tells you they’re counterfeiters. Placing the ads prominently on sites that might lead a consumer to believe they are dealing with the real thing is equally as shady. The fakes these sites are selling aren’t even that cheap, I recall thinking that you could purchase on sale for about the same price and get the real thing! Illegal activities aside (although its extremely hard for me to separate this issue due to the particularly gruesome details), I don’t understand why someone would dump their hard earned money into buying a fake, when there is no comparison in quality and comfort. I didn’t know about the site that Louboutin has launched, thanks so much for that info!
After reading this I’ve seen a fake Louboutin advert on 4 blogs this morning! One of which was Cupcakes & Cashmere! This is ridiculous. I own a pair of Louboutins and can’t imagine wanting to buy a pair of fakes.
very well said. it isn’t satisfying to have a fake something, there is no substitute for saving hard for something you really want and then going and buying it from the real place and having a wonderful retail experience. I completely understand people wanting things and not being able to afford them and going down this route but it really isn’t the same, the shoes won’t be so comfortable and you won’t treasure them in the same way.
At last, thankyou somebody for pointing this out. I myself used Adsense up until last week, and have now decided not to use it anymore as my site was being aggressively bombarded by these dodgy sites (and there are several of them). Adsense also kept putting weightloss ads on my site, which I had filtered out, but stil they kept coming up. Google really need show a bit more integrity with their Adsense ads, otherwise it will not be seen a serious option (rant over!)
Super post! If you cannot afford the real thing it is better to have nothing at all! All my designer stuff is real and I would not dream of buying fakes. Don’t get me wrong, I cannot afford to be designer 100% but I have a good mixture of designer (such as Mulberry), high end high street (Banana Republic) and regular high street buys (Topshop). A true fashionista should know that rip offs ain’t clever and mix it up with high street and vintage. One classic designer handbag can do a lot of milage and investing in this instead of tons of fakes is savvy and fashionable.
Great post and I couldn’t agree more with you. Aside from it being immoral, I could just never settle for fake. I can’t afford Louboutins so I buy Nine West. Easy as that.
I almost bought a couple of pairs of fake Louboutins thru one of these wesite, I wasnt really aware of those were fakes as the website looked like some kind of ‘factory outlet’ of Louboutins. Wehn I asked some questions about items to the customer;s service, their English was poor in the reply and it was sent by ‘Chinese’ email address and I realized straight away I was walking into a mud puddle!!
I examined their website carefully and found that they never say they were an ‘official website of Louboutins’ or give any guarantee on authenticity.
The thing is they are very ‘well-formed’ web site in normal people’s eyes who doesn’t have long enough expirience in fashion field as People cannot see the actual quality of the product until they receive it.
I am so happy that you speak up and really think company like ‘GOOGLE’ should’nt support these kind of ‘industry killing devils’ any more and know there are so many of decent fashion-lovers who really appreciate great quality and originality rather than gettin ‘big names’ at cheap price!
Great post and a real issue. Totally agree about funding all the wrong people in you final comment. Wise words! xx
I feel sorry for people that pay hundreds of pounds buying fake shoes from ebay where the seller makes over 100% profit – its disgraceful but what can one do? I get so annoyed when I know I only sell authentic items on the site but others don’t, although I realise it is very difficult to monitor. I would only ever buy items from the brands you mention, directly from the stores or NAP etc. I once sold an LV bag with receipt and got asked if the receipt was fake as apparently that happens too!
If only more than 25 people could read about this!
More than 2000 domains are advertising these fakes.
Google is showing ads via thousands of sites for these fakes.
Someone is making a LOT of money.
Google has been forced to remove from their search results, several thousand sites selling Louboutin fakes.
See the bottom of every page: http://www.google.com/search?num=10&q=louboutin where you’ll see details of the many DMCA requests served on Google.
Even so, there are tens of thousands of sites still to be removed. Some estimates suggest that the fakers own more than a quarter of a million domain names.
I’m purchasing my very first pair of Louboutin’s on Saturday from Harvey Nichols in Manchester & I’m so so excited!! More so because I know that they’ll be the genuine product of the great man himself
I just wish that there was an outlet store that you knew sold the real thing as the price tag on some of the CL’s are really expensive.
So with you on this one. The point of buying a pair of Louboutins is because they are real. I do not also understand why Facebook approves so many fake ads. It’s awful!
I used to see an online site that sold fake Chanel jewelry and handbags. They said right up front their items were replicas. Cannot imagine wasting money on this stuff and who knows IF you ever receive the item once you pay for it. Last time I checked, that site was down and there was a legal doc posted showing they were in legal trouble.. So Chanel went after them and so glad they did. Now Lagerfeld and little Choupette can sleep better.
Love your blog and look forward to every post!