My first Off White bins find and it was fake! I found an Off White Industrial belt which can sell in the $100-200 range. This brand was started by the late Virgil Abloh who also served as creative director for Louis Vuitton. I was so excited to find it, but knew I had to be sure it was real. So how did I know my find was a fake? I googled. I looked at photos on the Off White website and checked out other YouTube videos on the subject. I am not an expert, but it is pretty easy to compare mine to photos and see it’s a knock off. Below are a few points I zeroed in on comparing. *all images are mine.
Letter Spacing & Stitching Quality
My first clue that the belt was questionable was the stitching. Across all luxury products one of the main stays is always perfect, exquisite stitching. You can see in my photo that the thickness and the thinness of the red stitching changes as it moves down the belt. A contrast stitch like this that’s meant to be seen and decorative would definitely be perfection on a $200 belt. Also, others on the web identified the large space between the ‘W’ and ‘I’ in ‘will’ as a sign of a fake. It should be even on a real belt.
2. Made Where?
I’m not 100% sure, but I read the belts specifically are made in Italy. Some Off White product categories are made in Portugal & other countries, but defiantly do your research here.
3. Shape and Alignment of Letters
When you look closely at the density of the weave of the belt, a real one is detailed. You can see the letters are not consistently shape, like the shape of the ‘G’. They should also be in a straight line all evenly parallel across their bottoms. My belt isn’t very dense and the letters a sloppy.
4. The Spring
Real belt should have 3 coils in the spring. 4 is a fake!
5. The Tags
I could not find a good comparison photo, but there should be more layers to the paper tags shown here. Mine only has 2 and I saw pictures showing more. Also, if your belt is missing the woven blue loop is definitely a fake too!
I hope this helps you if you ever find an Industrial Belt in the wild. Not likely as they are easily recognized and I should have known it was too good to be true!
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