A vintage expert with 20 years of experience says there are telltale signs to spot a fake Hermes Birkin. She said there are things counterfeiters don’t take into consideration that can help spot fakes. Here’s what to keep in mind when choosing a vintage Birkin.
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This essay is based on a conversation with Koyaana Redstar, Head of Luxury Purchasing at Luxe Du Jour, an online luxury boutique for vintage designer handbags. Edited for length and clarity.
I was a nanny in college in Los Angeles and supplemented my income by going to Goodwill stores and finding designer handbags at low prices and selling them on eBay, or Poshmark at the time.
It was so much fun that I wanted to turn this into a real job.
My mother said there was no such thing as a fashion industry in New York. She said, “I need to go to New York.” And I said, “Yeah, you’re right, I think so too.”
I was there as soon as I graduated. In New York, he worked at a consignment store, gaining work experience selling products from luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Hermès, and Chanel.
Since then, I have worked for Rebag, The RealReal, and other vintage consignment stores, and have 20 years of experience in the resale industry.
I’ve learned strategies that help me identify specific aspects of a luxury bag, from its model to its composition, just by looking at it.
For me, the Hermès Birkin and Kelly are probably the most iconic bags in fashion. These are classics and hold their value better than most other bags.
Here are some tips to help you tell if the vintage Birkin you’re looking for is the real deal.
zipper pull
One of the things counterfeiters often get wrong is the zipper pull. For some reason, most counterfeiters don’t take the time or effort to make genuine products.
The inner zipper pull on the Hermès Birkin and Kelly is one of its biggest perks.
On some fakes, when the word “Hermès” is pressed into the zipper pull, there are ridges on the edge of each letter, making it look like bubbles.
You won’t see anything like this with genuine Hermès products. The zipper has clear and clean writing.
zipper stop
The zipper stop is also shaped like the letter H. Hermès changed this in the early 2000s. It used to be a regular stop, but now it’s in the shape of an H.
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If you compare fake and real Hermès bags, you will find that the real H shape is very special. Counterfeit products make a fat H or a thin and tall H.
Counterfeiters often overlook small details such as zipper stops that help experts tell the difference between real and fake products.
font
Khloe Kardashian’s Hermès Birkin. Dario Cantatore/Invision/AP
Another thing that counterfeiters don’t get 100% right is how the fonts are stamped, especially on the hardware.
Luxury experts can tell the real from the fake because they’ve been observing bag fonts for years and know what common inconsistencies surface.
One way to tell if it’s a fake is to see if the foil font stamped on the bag has a green tint to it. That’s a clear sign that something is wrong.
odor
A light brown Hermes Birkin suede bag. Edward Berthelot/Getty Images
If you own a Hermès Birkin, you’ll know that the way the leather is treated gives it a perfume-like scent.
But if you smell a bag and it has a strong leather smell, almost like a boot shop, that’s not a good sign.
Hermes doesn’t smell like that. So if your bag smells too much like leather, that’s a red flag. If it smells like chemicals, that’s another red flag.
So I decided to sniff the bag and identify it. I know it looks weird, but the smell can be deadly.
