First, department stores. They must not sell fake stuff! Everything I saw there was authentic with full price, around $230.00. No bargains, yet the safest place to buy genuine products.
Then thrift stores. It is truely depend on who drops what kind of items. Within this time period, I could not find any authentic True Religion jeans, but I found fake ones twice. All jeans were $5.99 there. So, if you can spot authentic name brand jeans of any kinds, you can get bargains.
Finally, second hand shops. People go there to buy, sell, trade clothes, so they have the fastest cycle of items. I have counted 15 True Religion jeans during the time period, and found out that 9 of them were fake. That means 60% were fakes!! Moreover, those fake jeans were sold at $45.00 to $55.00 price range, and that was total rip-off! It became obvious that shop staffs didn't know how to distinguish fakes, and you have to be very very careful to shop there if you don't want to grab fake stuff and pay for it.
Well, I guess I've seen enough, so I'll share the tips to distinguish between authentic and fake True Religion jeans as much as I can tell. I'll place the photos side by side, and it is always going to be authentics on the left and fakes on the right. I must apologize the photo quolity though. This is the best I can do with my camera.
Back labels. The authentic one uses yellowish white fabric and looks neater over all. The Buddha is more detailed, and the stitching is even and stright. The fake one, on the other hand, the fabric feels cheaper and looks a bit paler. Look at the stitching. It is neither even nor straight. Look at the lower right corner. There is a line of stitching branching off the main virtical line. You will not see this kind of blemish in authentic True Religion jeans.
Those are reversed sides of labels. On the authentic jeans, nice and straight stitching done with thick red thred. On the fake jeans, the stitching is poorly done with partly red thred and partly black thred. There will never be such flaw on authentic jeans. I can say that stitching quality on the fake jeans is really poor over all. So, this can be the first place you want to check.
Here are the inside tags. It is hard to see in those photos, but in the tag on the fake jeans, the Buddha looks kind of beat up.
Tags usually say jeans are "made in usa." However, I've seen other variations of tags such as " designed in usa" or " made in china" on some fake jeans. It brought up this question. Are there any other variations of inside tags in authentic jeans? There is only one thing I can do. I went to the nearest True Religion store, and checked as many tags I could. It seemed all the jeans had "made in usa" tags, but shorts had "made in Mexico" and "made in Sri Lanka" tags. I even asked the sales clerk if he could explain it, yet he didn't know anything at all. So, the best we can do when checking the inside tag is making sure it is neat and "made in usa" written on it.
Now, here is fairly easy place to check, bottonholes. You can take a look at how clean and quality job a craftsman has done on the authentic jeans, while the bottonhole on the fake jeans is complete rubbish!
All the things I've written so far are just guides and tips. The techniques of making fake products have improved daily. It means the fakes would look closer and closer to the authentics. In fact, a few things I did not mention here, such as zippers and Buddha stamps on fake True Religion jeans, have started to look pretty much like the authentic ones. So, do not over trust the guides.
The best defence to avoid buying fake products is to get to know how authentic products look and feel. Fake products will never meet the qualities of authentic products. When you try on authentic True Religion jeans, you want to see how they fit you, how the high quality denim feels on your skin, and how comfortable they are when you move around.
Then what is the point of wearing fake products? Does that make me feel as good as putting on authentic products? The answer is "NO." I wore those fake jeans for a whole day and went out to test if I could bear with them. I was unpleasant all the time because of the fact that I was wearing fake jeans. Some people seemed to notice that jeans were fake, and it was kind of them not say anything, but I was really embarrassed.
The moral lesson is, I must wear things that makes me happy. Otherwise, I am not myself.
This is more like it! I am wearing a real pair of True Religion jeans with American Red Cross t-shirt, a vintage Oscar de la Renta tie as a belt, and Tony Lama western boots.
In the end, I want to say this. No matter how cheap they may be, do not buy fake products! Because when you wear them, you can never have confidence and pride to show yourself in public.
When you dress like yourself, you want to make your appearance with dignity.
