Paris fashion brands are panicking: too many fakes are spreading all over the world and hurting the sale’s level of top French brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Givenchy, Kenzo, and the like. The number of fake clothing and acessories is about 10% from the total number smuggled goods that enter France each year. It’s may not seem much, but the numbers are still huge.

The fact that the most world-famous fashion brands are originally French, makes France the leading country among those who fight fakes.

The clothing brands such as Lacoste or Luis Vuitton spend really big amount of money on fighting fakes: from 3 to 15 mln. euros.

Noone knows the actual numbers of how much the companies are losing. Those who buy fakes rarely admit that the thing they bought isn’t the true designer’s item. "But we think, in a sector that employs a quarter of a million people in France, we lose 38,000 jobs a year because of counterfeiting” – said Marc-Antoine Jamet, secretary general of the LV’s perfume division and the head of the anti-fakes pressure group, the Manufacturers' Union.

Companies wage war on counterfeiting by trying to influence people’s minds byexplaining that the money from the counterfeiting business go into the hands of the same people that control drug’s smuggling, prostitution or money laundering.