FAKE handmade or REAL handmade

[Marcell]

As a shoemaker I can see from a shoe at the first glance if that is handmade or not. On the other hand even machine-made shoe is signed "handmade", which makes me very disappointed.

I am not posting this videos to advertise myself - I guess you know them, but I would like to show what real handmade means:

http://youtube.com/user/MarcellHUN

A REAL handmade shoe needs many hours of intensive work, effort and skills - you can easily destroy your whole work with a tiny wrong movement. That shoe stays on the last 2 weeks - no tensions stays in upper leather, you don't have to count on deforming after 3 times of wearing them.

A machine made shoe stays sometimes a few hours on lasts. Machines cannot produce the same quality and durability, but their owners keep the right to misuse our "handmade" reputation and some customers will believe that they can buy a handmade shoe for 200 USD..

Maybe the solution would be to give a certificate to real handmade products.

[Sator]

I am surprised that EU has no laws to prevent makers from writing Fatto a Mane etc on machine made shoes. It is basically false advertising.

[Marcell]

Is there any las for it in the USA? or any other country? I need to move there.. What you wrote is the real essence of this problem.. "fatto a mano". Hard to believe even for those who really makes by hand there..

How would you define a handmade? I heard that someone called "handmade" a shoe, because they controlled the machines by hand (sic!).

[RWS]

Is there any las for it in the USA? or any other country?

It's illegal in the United States (except as noted below) and, I'd guess, in most countries. The problem is enforcement.

. . . . How would you define a handmade? I heard that someone called "handmade" a shoe, because they controlled the machines by hand (sic!).

Such reasoning has won more than a single lawsuit.

But why would anyone buy "handmade" shoes simply because he believes them to be "handmade"? Instead (I imagine), he chooses a shoe because he likes its style or its leather, or because he thinks its construction is sturdy and comfortable. Claiming that a shoe is "made by hand" when it isn't is just a gossamer deception.

[Marcell]

"handmade" gives a kind of garantee for the quality. A real handmade maker will put the effort, the best materials into the product. We don't have huge marketing budgets to corrigate our mistakes by ads - if a customer start to communicate negative things about our us - this can be the end (at least in that certain market) of that company.

[stultus77]

But why would anyone buy "handmade" shoes simply because he believes them to be "handmade"? Instead (I imagine), he chooses a shoe because he likes its style or its leather, or because he thinks its construction is sturdy and comfortable. Claiming that a shoe is "made by hand" when it isn't is just a gossamer deception.

I think your comments are accurate when applied to the "average" consumer (if there is such a thing), who is looking for utility and cost-performance. Terms such as "hand-made", however, when misused are intended to resonate with and market products to the budding satorlist or the high-end consumer who is looking for "something better" but needs that little justification/marketing spin before plunking down the cash. I think it is similar to the whole 150s or 180s micron cloth tall tale in that those clothes don't necessarily make the best/most practical suits, but it is an easy story to sell to those looking for something more "luxurious" or "exclusive".

In my experience as a watch collector, terms such as "hand-made" or "100% in-house" are abused as marketing tools by many of the manufacturers, which basically are slowing turning into marketing-driven money-making platforms for luxury conglomerates like Richmont, Swatch group, etc. Casual collectors and those who don't understand the actual watchmaking process (just like suits, nearly no watches are actually 100% handmade) are miselead into overpaying for items based on these types of borderline misleading statements.

Sorry to be so cynical...

[RWS]

I fear it's not cynicism, Daniel, but realism. Thanks for an illuminating parallel.

[Sator]

Bitter resigned cynicism is fine but the trouble is how far do we let it go before we cry out 'enough is enough'?

A consumer report found that many super wools, when laboratory tested, were of a less fine micronage than the one stated. If you buy pure vicuña or cashmere how do you know it really is just that? If you did buy "Australian merino wool" how do you know it really is? If you buy a car with a 3L engine how do you know it isn't a 2.4L? If the nutritional label says low carbs/fat how do know if you can trust it? If the toy says child safe how do you know your toddler won't choke to death on it?

In every case of corporate mass deception are we going to sit back and just say "that's life - tough titties".

The raison d'etre of many a discussion forum is to arm the consumer with genuine knowledge which cuts through the advertising hype. But as consumers we also need to push politicians and lawmakers to enforce laws about false advertising.

[RWS]

. . . . [A]s consumers we also need to push politicians and lawmakers to enforce laws about false advertising.

Our own laws often will not suffice. China, for example, is the near-monopolist exporter of cashmere (much cashmere originates in Outer Mongolia, but it's sold through a Chinese government-owned trading corporation). I remember an article in The Wall Street Journal a few years ago regarding this cashmere: citing analyses by a British laboratory (perhaps connected with the Wool Institute; I don't remember), the Journal reported that samples of "pure cashmere" exported through China consistently showed adulteration with about one quarter non-cashmere -- cheaper -- wool. China, of course, has not and likely will not do anything about this, regardless of its nominal adhesion to international agreements regulating honesty in trade.

As consumers, we all are aware of the widespread counterfeits and other frauds coming out of China. But we don't know even whether a particular cashmere cloth, milled in Britain or the United State or Italy, contains the virtually omnipresent Chinese "cashmere" or genuinely pure cashmere from another land (nor does the mill likely know). And this is but a single instance, Sator. Can I, as a virtual ignoramus in matters computer, know other than that my electronic goods aren't working as they should (and as, just twenty or thirty years ago, they probably would have)? No. Will my governments, federal and state, enforce the applicable (and well-written) laws? No: too indebted to foreign states, too leary of the raw military aggressiveness of certain of those states, and too stripped of our own manufacturing capabilities, there's really nothing that they can do besides the occasional rant or show.