OPAL v Luxury goods

As I have posted in various other posts either in this blog or my other blog - Legal Cat-asthrophe, I just came back from a shopping haven in Indonesia. It is a place where the line between the original merchandise and the imitation is blurred. When I went down to Indonesia's capital Jakarta, I still shopped for the real thing but now I refrained myself from buying the shirts and clothes which I see is actually of even poorer quality than the imitation. Although it is supposed to be fashionable to wear t-shirts which shouts it's message, I found these shirts made under certain brand to be too showy and actually of lower quality than those made supposedly under license.

As for the title of this posting OPAL refers to Original Palsu, a term use to describe these license goods or imitation goods. We were told that the factories for certain brands were once set up within the vicinity of the town. Some are still there and the clothes that they are selling are defective goods or discontinued line of clothing or fashion. Remember that documentary film, which is the breakthrough film by uber film director Michael Moore on Nike using Indonesia as the base for it's sweatshop? That is why they are selling Nike they say. Whether it is true or not, I actually do not care too much as the quality seems to be on par with the clothes in the real Nike store. And I am not even sure whether there are still Nike factory around that area. If they are still there, shouldn't the executives who are assigned to monitor the production there raises hell with the government on the existence of imitation goods?

It is not actually some new news when it comes to other countries having these imitation goods on sale. In Malaysia, there are streets which are famous for it. In most Chinatown, there are such trade. In one episode of Sex and the City, the affluent Samantha Jones bought some imitation bags from a guy in Brooklyn before finding out that he was nearly raided. So, it is not that rare of a business. It is everywhere. But when i comes to finding nearly every brand in one big store with good air conditions and so many of those store, in one place, that place I went really take the cake.