The Walmart Birkin Isn't About Hermès

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Everyone's talking about an $80 Birkin at Walmart like it's news, but counterfeit luxury bags have already been just a Prime order away. TikTok spent 2022 obsessing over DHGate hauls - remember #dupe season? The fascination with this particular moment feels like something else entirely.

This isn't about a new level of accessibility or legitimacy. Amazon has been offering these bags with Prime shipping and free returns, providing that same veneer of respectability and American retail convenience. Yet those dupes never captured the public imagination quite like this Walmart moment.

And it's certainly not about audacity. Between 2011 and 2014, seven Hermès employees orchestrated what might be the most audacious luxury scandal of our time. From French workshops, they created their own underground operation, stealing materials and tools to make unauthorized "authentic" Birkins. They produced about 150 bags that sold for between €23,500 and €32,000 each – around half the price of genuine Birkins at the time, which retailed for €44,000 for these sizes and leathers. The operation netted more than €4 million by selling to unwitting customers in Asia, especially Hong Kong.

Even more fascinating was their access to "bon au personnel" bags - a little-known Hermès program that lets employees make their own bags for personal use, marked with a distinctive shooting star stamp. These employees were selling these, too, giving buyers a convincing backstory about the bags' provenance.