About 4 years ago, Louis Vuitton announced its plans to discontinue the custom orders division of its luxury brand. This meant they would no longer accept custom orders for bags or clothing from celebrities or the public.
This news came at a time when Kanye West’s custom $6,300 LV backpack was all the rage on the blogs.
I wanted a smaller version of that backpack, but a rep at the Louis Vuitton corporate office assured me that LV would “probably” resume accepting custom orders “in the future” (this was 3 years ago).
So imagine my surprise when I saw the pictures of Justin Bieber wearing what appeared to be a custom made Louis Vuitton jacket to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week.
Thinking the future was now, I called the corporate office ready to place an order for my backpack. But the rep claimed not to have any knowledge of the “custom” jacket that Bieber was wearing. So I emailed the rep a photo of the jacket and waited for a response.
10 hours went by before I heard back from the LV rep who pointed out that the jacket Justin wore was a counterfeit.
Last night, Inside Edition spotlighted our post on Justin Bieber’s fake Louis Vuitton — and the hip hop community took notice.
Any hip hop connoisseur knows that rappers have a longstanding love affair with luxury brands. Grand Hustle general manager Hannah Kang points out that stylist Groovey Lew dressed rappers such as Puffy Combs (pictured above), Nas, Rick Ross and others in fake Gucci, Louis and MCM clothing.
But the times have changed, and now Louis Vuitton is aggressively pursuing anyone who infringes on the high end brand — including rapper T.I. who was sent a cease and desist letter for waving a Louis rag in his video for the song “Swing Ya Rag (Louis Rag)”.
The C&D was sent out after Louis Vuitton held a release party for T.I. vs T.I.P. inside its Lenox Mall location in 2008 in Atlanta. Not to mention that Louis Vuitton has dressed T.I. in the past.
So if LV threatened T.I. with legal action just for waving a rag, doesn’t it seem strange that the fashion house would not notice Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith parading around in fake LV jackets for a month?
Watch the Inside Edition feature on Justin below
