Original? Or reproduction, copy or fake?
This is one of the most difficult areas in costume jewellery, not least because there isn’t any firm agreement as to the meaning of the terms. Please remember that just because I use them in a certain way there is no guarantee that others will use them in the same way.
To me the terms can be explained by analogy with the dress industry with which costume jewellery is so closely linked. Both industries cater to fashion and survive by producing things designed to go out of fashion so you have to regularly buy their new designs.
In dress design the designer creates an original and there are a small number of pieces produced in the hopes that there will be demand, if the design is successful then a large number of pieces will be produced and all of them will be originals; their origin is the designer and the chosen manufacturer and all the materials and production processes will be to the same high standard. They will all be expensive. Some of these pieces become classics and are in demand for a very long time while others never really become popular and the design is discontinued almost as soon as it appears.
The next stage with a successful design is that mass market companies jump on the fashion bandwagon and produce copies of this dress design. They are not exactly the same as the original but are ‘in the style of’. Depending on the market they cater for they may be very good copies of high quality and command high prices or they may be very cheap copies which bear little real resemblance to the original. In any case they will bear the name of the producer or seller, or no label at all, and will make no attempt to pretend they are the real thing.
Fakes come in from an entirely different direction, they are copies intended to deceive. They do their best to give the impression of quality while using processes and materials that are cheap. They will be marked with the best replica of the original label that they can manage. They will often have been made by buying one original and taking patterns from it.
So that explains the way I define originals, copies and fakes; which only leaves reproductions undefined.
Sometimes, for special occasions such as to mark an important anniversary, originals may be reissued using the original patterns. These may be exact duplicates or they may be slightly adapted to suit current fashion but the important factor is that these reproductions are legally allowed to be marked in the same way as the original. For me, reproductions are not very common.
Originals and reproductions are made by the original designer and manufacturers or their heirs.
Copies are made by everyone who is following a fashion trend.
Fakes are created for no other reason than obtaining money by deception.
|
