Have you heard of fake Japanese fabrics?

It just came to my awareness that there are sellers selling Fake Japanese fabrics, even on Etsy. I'm really surprised about it as I've never thought that will ever happen, and there's really nothing the Japanese manufacturers can do to stop them. Therefore, I think it's good for buyers, especially those really who loves genuine Japanese fabrics to know how to differentiate them.

How to spot fake Japanese fabrics:

1.The selvedge doesn't have the designer name on it! All you see is the little color dots. However, there are some genuine Japanese fabrics which don't have designer name on them, so do take note of the other details.

2.The fabric is of low quality. The basecloth has very rough texture and easy to fray. It has a low threadcount and feels much thinner and coarser.

3.The colors are slightly different/off.

4.There are less details than in the original pattern!

Personally I have not bought any fake Japanese fabrics, as I have been importing all my Japanese fabrics directly from the Japan manufacturers. The above are collated from the following, you might be interested to see the whole discussion:

http://germandolls.blogspot.com/2010/09/fake-fabric.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49182185@N02/4919089049/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amygunson/4865417988/

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6626581&page=1

The above discussions mentioned about Kokka fabric, and recently I have just imported some Kokka fabrics, so here is how some of the selvedges look like:



There's wording such as "created by Kokka", "designed by Kokka", there are also some new fabrics with "created by Push Pin* x Kokka" on the selvedges.

To protect yourself from fake Japanese fabrics, buy only from reputable sellers. Paying through a system that offers buyer protection, such as Paypal, might help you too. If the seller did mentioned about "Japanese fabric", "made in Japan" etc. , there might be a chance that you can proof that the seller is selling an item that is significantly not as described.


If you have heard of anything about fake Japanese fabrics, please feel free to share over here.