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by Charles Carreon
10:00pm, September 13, 2005
This just in from the Dept of Homeland Security website
— the Customs arm of the Dept of Homeland Security is delivering $17
Million worth of clothing seized because it was "in violation of trademark
laws." That is to say, these clothing are fakes, knockoffs of famous
brands like Adidas, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, and other popular
consumer names.
From the DHS website: "Customs and Border Protection and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement - U.S. Customs and Border
Protection(CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) trucks
delivered several thousand items of clothing to Hurricane Katrina evacuees
in Jackson, Miss., Houston and San Antonio, Texas. The clothing, seized in
violations of U.S. trademark laws is worth estimated at over $17 million."
One of the problems of clothing like this is it's not
just got fake brands, it's shitty apparel. It falls apart quickly. As
Bruce Sterling described this phenomenon in a recent Wired article:
"They say you can't understand people until you've
walked a mile in their shoes. I just walked across Belgrade in a brand-new
pair of Nikes. Now I understand something: The citizens of this city are
the vanguard of a new phase of capitalism. They're busily subverting
conventional multi-national commerce and creating a dark parallel process
- call it black globalization.
My new shoes look authentic, but they're a scam of
ominous sophistication. The insole logo is silk-screened on; my socks
erased the Nike swoosh in a single afternoon. The stitching is coarse and
sloppy - the pull tab at the heel ripped loose the first time I tried to
use it. The sporty soles are slippy, not grippy. The tag proclaims MADE IN
KOREA, although the product is almost certainly a fake churned out by a
Chinese factory. Adding insult to Nike's injury, the phony barcode denotes
a pair of Reeboks."
So, while FEMA is actively turning away donations of
decent clothing being offered by people all across America, DHS is rushing
them all the fake, crappy apparel they have on hand. It must strike the
guys in Customs as very funny: "And ye shall know them by their phony
baseball caps and pirated pants." Other good jokes, "Hey whaddaya mean
you're not from New Orleans. You tell me you bought that Louis Vuitton on
Rodeo Drive?"
I should also point out that all of these counterfeit
goods are, in ordinary times, a total liability. When I worked for Louis
Vuitton at an LA lawfirm, we paid big, big storage bills on "millions of
dollars worth" of Vuitton luggage we'd seized. That was a drag on the
system. We couldn't give it away, or give it to charity, because that
would defeat the purpose of seizing it — to keep poor people from sporting
wealthy people brands. We couldn't burn it because it was an environmental
hazard. So we stored it. The people at DHS are very clever, because this
is going to free up a lot of storage space.
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