DIOR HOMME - Coats/Jackets: A Fake Napoleon Luster Jacket

I thought this deserved its own section. The real version of this jacket fetches between $3-6k on eBay. It is a beautiful piece of fashion history. Recently though, a fake popped up on eBay. It was kind of tricky because the seller used several pictures of an authentic jacket and then a few pics of the fake jacket. The item got a lot of bids and was breaking the $5,000 mark when eBay finally removed it at the last minute. The seller relisted it and the same thing happened again. eBay was only able to catch it because many members reported it. Luckily some bidder saved some serious cash by not winning it.

Example (click to enlarge):

To try and stop that from happening again; here are some photos of the fake jacket. I've included the runway photo for comparison purposes. In the comparison above you can see that the gold trimmed epaulette straps are much more rounded at the ends than the original. On the real jacket they form more of a "V" shape, not a "U" shape. The strap length is also reversed on the fake, the longer one being the inside strap, not the outside strap like the original.

Example (click to enlarge):

Example (click to enlarge):

Examine the zippers and the 'fur' trim on the cuff and the epaulettes. The original jacket has short cut horsehair trim as opposed to the knock-off's longer fabric trim. The zippers on the knock-off are the rounded tear-drop style with the semi-circle hole, that only came into production a couple seasons ago (and this Napoleon jacket is from 2001). The zippers on the original jacket are rectangular with string pulls and small leather "Dior Homme" logos on the pulls.

Please be cautious when bidding on these jackets. The fake auctions often include some shots of a real jacket and then one or two of the fake jacket. To be safe, ask the seller to take a shot of the front of the jacket with a piece of paper with the seller's eBay name written on it. This ensures that the jacket pictured is the actual jacket for sale.

If you see a fake item on eBay please report it. There is a 'report this item' link at the bottom of each auction page. Helping some unaware bidder save his hard earned money, and cleaning up the fakes on eBay will be well worth the time.