The Knock-off Artist

Come closer. It can’t hurt to take a look. I got your Burberry Hobos, Montblancs, Hermès Birkin Crocodile bags in tangerine and lemon lime, limited edition Murakami Gucci purses and Boo Hoo Kitty totes.

The season of the knock-off starts later and lasts much longer than your standard fashion season. This is because the late-comers, the ones with the big ambitions, their wallets are just catching up to their desire as they reach my storefront.

See how their eyes probe my merch for evidence of craftsmanship, the leatheriness of the leather, the binding and satin interiors, fealty to the one they spotted in the subway and visited in the department store during lunch.

I think you’ll agree that I have the harder test. This is why they are my children, the clever ones.

Who has not treasured a pet to such an extreme that, upon its death, another of the same pelt weighed heavily in one’s thoughts? It is that way with animals: you see their doubles with tongues out in the street, giddily following other legs.

I loved a fellow once. No matter which shape my passion took, he would insist that he was not what I was looking for -- that there were many other men out there who were like him, but better.

That was because he held my flaws with arms extended as though deliberating whether a shirt stained with oil could be salvaged. I could see his too and so what. There is a sameness to qualities like generosity and thoughtfulness, as they apply to demeanor and intercourse. But there are countless and perverse layers in the ways one can be a shit: some possess the denseness of feathers. The bastard you can bear is the one for you. This made me the more loyal lover.

The sure sign of a true knock-off artist is when he has even better wares to show you in his basement, of varieties you did not believe possible. If there is another chamber where you spot an old man in spectacles, stripped to the waist, bent over a slab of man-made material, then your search is over.

Mothers, teach your children: What there is to show is never the limits of what is truly obtainable. Or try this: To be a true connoisseur of imitation, you must admire the hand stitching the feathers.