High fashion is fast and expensive as fuck. When it comes to streetwear, however, that seems a completely different beast. You’ve got a ton of limited drops being torn apart by buyers using bots, then piggybacking on the hype to charge more than double the amount. You’re probably thinking “fuck, being trendy in this day and age sucks” and yeah man, staying it does.

So what can we do about it? Check a charity shop in hopes for a grail, borrow your dad’s Lacoste golf sweaters and hope he doesn’t find out or simply just join the dark side and use bots. Yet there stands one community that is saying fuck all of those paths and are going overseas, dealing with languages unknown in a quest for the most accurate pieces out there. Enter the world of r/FashionReps.

So as you may know, counterfeit production of clothes in Asia is off the fucking charts. r/FashionReps is there to bridge that gap of knowledge between the East and West. See the clothes may be fake, but these fellas come are as real as it gets; well, y’know, as real as anybody can be wearing fake brands. It is self described as a place to discuss fashion replicas, aiming to be “the centre of replica fashion discussion on Reddit”. The community regularly post items that they have waiting on them in China, in order to be checked for accuracy by other users, before eventually being shipped to the buyer. Posts of hauls are also frequent, with thousands of dollars/pounds/etc. being spent on large shipments in an attempt to combat the high shipping costs. Ultimately it boils down to finding the most ‘1:1’ items, which means as close to retail as possible for all you squares out there, and avoiding the worst possible scenario: getting called out for wearing fake shit. See video for reference.

To get an insight into this seemingly underground group, I got talking to one avid sham shopper; who regularly ships superbuy packages to his native Australia.

Larz-Kyon: So how long have you been buying reps for?

u/Irod41: I first discovered reps when I really really wanted a pair of Vapormax that just came out, but I just couldn’t justify spending $280AUD for them. I later ended up buying a pair though hahaha. I eventually ended up stumbling upon r/FashionReps and my first order was in July 2017; since then I have made 7 orders.

Fuck man that is a good few hauls. So how is your wardrobe looking after that, I mean, we talking more hype stuff or have you gone more low-key?

Definitely more low-key. The only Supreme things I have is a carabiner and this dice case just because I liked how they looked with all the little knick knack sort of things I own. Some of the stuff I’ve gotten are like rep Dickies worker chinos, Converses, socks and stuff.

I feel you man. I actually find it mad how many rep ‘preme accessories there are out there hahaha. So do you deliberately stay away from the hype items? I know there are a few put off from copping Louie bogos incase they get called out and shit.

Nah man, if an adult genuinely called me out I would respond like “who in their right fucking mind would spend $500 on a Supreme piece”. I honestly think the girls my age that rock a Gucci purse that is retail are just stupid, I mean, you’re working a cafe job so why waste your money? I wear what I like and talk shoes with my friends. I’ll buy designer if I like it, and I’d never make fun of someone because of what they wear; unless they are decked out in Supreme or Bape. Just sell your outfit and buy a car hahaha.

Yeah, just rocking pieces you like is where the sense lies and there is no need to bash people for that.

So there remains a users out there simply filling their wardrobes on a budget and not trying to flex on their school with mad brands that they obviously can’t afford. When going through the r/FashionrReps page, the range of shit that the Chinese are manufacturing is on a completely unprecedented level. I mean yeah I expected bogos ‘n’ that, but then you have Cav Empt pieces, CPFM baseball caps and Sean Wotherspoon 97s; mad pieces that probably wouldn’t be called out is right there on TaoBao at a fraction of retail price. Even Rejjie Snow knows what’s up as he claimed to be a repfam in this Noisey interview, meaning the fake Versace really did leave that stain he mentioned on the USSR track.

Wether you agree with it or not that is up to you. Yet I am sure we can all agree that resell values have gone off the charts, highlighted in many peoples dissatisfaction with the declining hype of brands like Palace and Supreme. Maybe just a bad bunch of 10 year olds ruined it? I don’t know, I’m not the guy that can answer that.

Next time you see the biggest hypebeast you know, just greet them with a “wat up repfam”, it could save you on shipping costs. But if you see your boy rockin Ray Bens, Guccy Slides or Supreme Yeezys then slap the top off of him. With r/FashionReps it really looks like he has no excuse.

Check r/FashionReps out here.

Disclaimer: Buy reps do whatever but Larz-Kyon didn’t tell you to do SHIT.