What about African Lace Made outside Austria or Switzerland?
Well, the answer is very straight forward : what about Rolex made in China? Or what about 5$ Nina Ricci parfum from the street corner?
Swiss voile laces are a luxury fabric made for very special occasions ( Except maybe in some Nollywood movies, where actors seem to wear party dresses even to clean disches.. ): wedding, Christmas or other celebrations.
As for all luxury products, counterfake copies can be found anywhere at a
fraction of the cost. However, real luxury don't accept copies : anyone knows the
difference between a replica watch, and a real one, no matter how good is the copy.
Let's say we have quite a lot of visitors from China in this website, but we never ship a simple piece of laces overthere ! Needless to say that it's mostly far east manufacturers looking for "inspiration" .In some way it's nice : only masters are copied, so somehow, it's rewarding to think that the exclusive designs are definitly seen as masters designs !. Eventually, one of them got in touch with us : they say that African Laces are a great opportunity for China, as local people would love to dress up with bubu in the coming years. Therefore, they asked for samples...
Picture that : 1,3 Billion Chinese people all dressed up with Nigerian cloths? I just wonder who in the World would believe such a story !
Luxury stands by itself as a statement that cannot be copied without loosing its value. However, laces are like cars : a car, cheap or luxury, will eventually take you from point A to point B. The difference is only in how long it will take and how you will get there, but eventually , you will arrive in point B.
Same for laces : you will attend the party, with a cheap lace, or a real one, but it won't be the same story. Low cost laces shrink like hell after the first wash and/ or loose colors. On top, designs have been seen on the market 1 million times, and run year after year, season after season.
But nowadays, it's not enough to buy a lace from Switzerland or Austria to say that it's a real one. Some manufacturers made them is the far east...and sell them as local products ! Well, why not if it comes cheaper for end users and they know it's not the case at all.(Did someone ever tell you :" By teh way, I do the laces in the far East, don't worry, they are at the same price as the ones made overhere in Europe...)
The key points of real laces made in Europe are design, exclusivity and quality. All this together made the lace a very special fabric, a luxury one. id any of these landmarks are removed, then it's a different story and another price, of course !
Pg
February 2008