When you have luxury taste and a knock-off budget, it can be tempting to take whatever fashion deal you can find online hoping that they’re the real deal. Thankfully, luxury bags like Burberry tend to have a few hallmarks that you can use to identify them. Thanks to these tells, learning how to tell if a Burberry bag is real is super simple.
8 Ways to Tell if a Burberry Bag Is Real
From the stitching to the hardware, there are a lot of key Burberry details to familiarize yourself with. Sure, trying to remember the nitty gritty can be overwhelming. But the more familiar you are with these elements, the quicker you’ll be able to clock them on a counterfeit.
Key Burberry handbag elements to check:
- Stitching
- Zippers
- Lable/plaque
- TB monogram (if present)
- Font
- Bag tag
- Haymarket check
- Hardware
The Stitching Is Uniform
Luxury handbags don’t cost a lot of money for nothing. They’re usually made with high-quality materials and construction techniques that ensure they hold up for years. Burberry, like most high-end brands, strives to have the most precise, uniform stitching across all of its products.
So, if you notice uneven spaces between the stitches, crooked stitches, or loose and fraying threads, then you may be looking at a knock-off.
The Zippers Are YKK
Burberry bags most often feature Riri brand YKK zippers, so the zippers on your bag should be engraved with the Riri logo. The zipper’s color should also match the color of the other hardware. So, if you’ve got gold buckles or fastens, you should have gold zippers, too.
The Label/Plaque Has Sharp, Centered Lettering
Some Burberry bags have leather labels stitched inside while others have metal plaques. Either way, the brand’s name should be even-spaced, crisp, and appear centered on the label or plaque. Uneven lettering, poor engraving, and poor label/plaque application can indicate that a bag is fake.
On the labels or plaques, you should find either Burberry (written in all capitals) by itself or with London printed beneath it.
The TB Monogram Is Correctly Configured
Unless you’re a Burberry super fan, you probably wouldn’t notice a bag with a TB logo and think it came from the British fashion house. Yet, many of their bags — including their recent TB collection — pay homage to the brand’s founder Thomas Burberry.
Most notably, these bags feature the TB monogram, which is a sans-serif capital T interlocked into a serif B. The B should be in the foreground, save for the middle section where the T comes through.
Related: How to Spot a Real Coach Purse & Avoid Getting Duped
The Brand’s Name Appears in the Right Font
Not every Burberry bag has the name printed or stamped across the front, especially considering many of their bags sport their immediately identifiable tartan-check pattern. Yet, those that do should have the proper branded font.
Use this quick guide as a reference to spot fake Burberry bags when you’re looking at online listings from resellers.
- R’s have a slight tail
- Left stem of the “U” is wider than the right one
- Left arm of the “Y” is wider than the right arm
- Lower bowl of the letter “B” is slightly larger than the upper one
- Bottom bar on the “E” extends just slightly beyond the top one’s length
Folded Bag Tags Have Matching Information
Bag tags are more than fun little doodads hanging off a purse arm. They’re another piece of branding that can be used to authenticate a bag. Real Burberry bag tags have specific identification information printed on them, such as product details and a barcode.
While there aren’t any digital libraries where you can look up the UPC codes or serial numbers to verify your bags, there are services you can pay to match the codes for you. This isn’t an ideal option, but if you’re on the fence about the other elements, it can help give you an iron-clad answer.
The Haymarket Check Is Correct
Not all real Burberry bags bear the Haymarket check, but many of them do. For those that do, you want to take a close look at the colors that are used, the repeating pattern, and the image that appears where the red lines intersect.
The Haymarket check comes with red, white, and black lines running across a camel-like tan background. There should be three sets of black lines in sequence and a single red line in between.
The figure that appears where the red lines intersect is a knight on horseback and appears faded — like a watermark — in a café au lait-like color.
Burberry has many house signature plaids that are less famous than the Haymarket. To check their authenticity, make sure the plaid patterns meet in the correct spot. For example, a plaid that meets on the back should always meet on the back.
The Hardware Is Heavy & Engraved
Luxury hardware is hardly ever light. Naturally, real Burberry handbags come with hardware that’s solid metal and heavy as a result. They shouldn’t have any chips or flaking. And they should be engraved with the same knight symbol that appears on the Haymarket plaid.
Burberry Bags: Real vs Fake
Burberry may not have the same reputation that handbag brands like Hermès bags do, but it’s a British mainstay that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And if you like their old-world aristocratic design sensibilities, then it’s better to figure out how to tell the fake Burberrys vs the real ones sooner rather than later.
