How to spot fake LOUIS VUITTON - a beginner's guide

First, some important things to know about LV.


LOUIS VUITTON NEVER...
* goes on sale. Ever. For any reason.

* allows anyone else to sell their product. You can ONLY buy it at an LV boutique (some boutiques are in other department stores such as SAKS but it is still an LV store.) Only louisvuitton.com sells online.

* has 'seconds' or any merchandise that would be less than perfect or sold at a discount. LV is handmade and if there is a problem it is destroyed.



These are some really easy ways to spot fake Louis Vuitton


1) FAKE CARDS -- For some reason lots of fakes come with 'authenticity cards' - which is odd since LV doesn't come with them.

Here are some of the easiest cards to spot - the dreaded yellow card and green envelope.



2) Fabric swatches and attached tags. LV comes with neither of these.

3) POOR QUALITY. Louis Vuitton is worth a lot of money and it is very well made. So a great way to tell a fake is by looking at the quality. Look for things like sloppy stitching, drippy glazing (the red stuff around the leather) and bad alignment - the LV's and fleurs should line up and the LV's are very rarely cut off.

4) THE WRONG HEATSTAMP. This is the part on the bag where it says LOUIS VUITTON paris made in France (or Spain, or USA or others).

The easiest way to tell a fake heatstamp is to look at the O's. They should be perfectly round. Fakes will have tall O's.

Real heatstamps never have the LV logo on them:

LOUIS VUITTON MYTHS...

* If LV has plastic on the handles it's fake. Not true - LV bags come with plastic which is supposed to be removed by the time it hits the floor - but some SA's leave it on when they give the client the bag straight from the back.

* The LV's should be upside down on one side of the bag or it's fake. - There are many variaions to this. Some bags are made with a single piece of canvas - so when it comes up the other side it will be upside down. However, some bags are made from more than one piece so they will not have the upside down logos. The speedy often will have a single piece of canvas - but during the time that the French Compant made bags (70's & 80's) they used 2 pieces - so both sides will be right side up.

* Authentic bags will have numbers inside, or the right kind of stamping or quality materials etc. but the fakes will not. --- Counterfeit bags are a million dollar industry -and they are made VERY well. Not all fakes are poor quality - and most are meant to look real. You can NEVER be 100% you are buying a real bag unless you get it from the boutique yourself. But there are ways to weed out the fakes so you can lessen your chances of getting a fake.

* If the LV's on the canvas are cut off it's a fake. -- While many bad fakes cut off the LV's there are some REAL styles that have the LV's cut off as well - so this is not always a tell tale sign. Sometimes they had to be cut off on one side to maintain the aethsetic of the main side.

* If it comes with a receipt it's probably authentic -- receipts are the EASIEST things to fake - all you need is a photocopier or a computer.

DIY Divided Tank - for dummies

This is a divided 20 gallon tank for Betta Fish.

For those who are visual - I just put together a 20 gallon divided tank and I took pics along the way to help other who are doing this.

What you need:
- Tank
- binder dividers (poster dividers will work too if they are tight) ($2 for me - cheaper in the US I bet)
- plastic craft mesh (from walmart or craft store - used for needle point and such) (A few bucks for me - like a buck in the US)
- Aquarium safe silicone or aquarium glue ($3 for a big tube - again, probably cheaper in the US) If you buy the big silicone things you'll need a silicone gun - something I did not realize -- thank goodness my husband had one =)

Optional:
- "Goo-gone" or other silicone remover
- q-tips
- paper towel


1) Take your tank and set it on it's side. Measure it and decide where you want to put the dividers. Then mark it with chalk or something:

2) Get your dividers ready - take them off of the report covers. I bought 2 packages so I could have matching colours:

3) Put a healthy amount of silicone onto the divider - put it on the flat side - not the side with the opening (told you this was for dummies) ;)

4) Take the divider with silicone and place it in aquarium where you marked it with chalk. Try and get it straight (I did this on my table and I used the table leaf line to make sure I got it right) Smoosh it down really well!

5)(optional) If you want to keep things nice and neat then dip your q-tip in some 'goo-gone' or silicone remover and wipe off any excess silicone.

6) Repeat this process as many times as you need. Let dry 24 hours (or whatever it says on your silicone):

7) Take your plastic mesh and slide it into place. I already had it precut - but you might need to cut it depending on the size you get. Be sure and be generous as you can always cut more if it doesn't it in the first time. Also make sure it's nice and tall so you can fill up the water more and your fish can't jump over. I wish I had made mine taller so I could fill the water higher. You can also create jump barriers though - but I didn't.

Add water, fish and stuff:

TIP - if your binder dividers are not SUPER DUPER tight then silicone them into place. This is the second time I made a divided tank - the first time I used poster dividers that weren't as tight - they got loose and my boys swam through and got into fights!

Happy Dividing!