Reading that the French fear that the municipality of Aubervilliers will earn the reputation of “little Prato” makes one smile, b it’s significant that the investigations into products made in France described by Glitz. Paris, paint a picture of concentrations of foreign entrepreneurs and a tendency toward illegality that has also been causing Italian fashion many headaches (and numerous embarrassments) for some time now. This is because the town in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris, is emerging as a hub for counterfeiting and subcontracting that leads to legal trouble.
Investigations into products made in France
There are two parallel stories reported by Glitz.Paris, as we mentioned. The first concerns the development in Aubervilliers of a veritable informal fashion district devoted mainly to the production of counterfeit goods. The impetus comes from the need for criminal networks to circumvent customs controls: it’s safer to import semi-finished products from Asian countries or Turkey to the outskirts of Paris and assemble them into finished items than to bring counterfeit accessories into France. It seems that the local authorities have no intention of cracking down on the phenomenon, preferring that the criminal networks’ foot soldiers engage in socially harmless activities, such as fashion manufacturing, rather than anything else.
Communicating vessels
It’s difficult to imagine that such a rampant manufacturing district would remain confined to a single area of activity without polluting neighboring ones. Let’s move on to the second story reported by Glitz.Paris. The lawsuit that saw Dior take on the small brand Clarosa, guilty of selling sneakers identical to those of the big fashion house for around €40. The item is significant not for the issue itself (fashion news is full of controversies over products that are a little too similar to each other), but for what emerged from the Paris trial. Clarosa defended itself by arguing that the shoes had been designed and then manufactured by three suppliers, all Chinese, based in Aubervilliers.
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