As designer accessories and sneakers merge into one large swirling storm of hype and desire—handbags and Jordans flying through the air like grail debris!—counterfeit sneakers are becoming one of the fashion industry’s biggest global threats. In December of last year, an unsealed federal complaint detailed a multiyear Department of Homeland Security investigation uncovering a massive counterfeit-sneaker ring spanning New York and Los Angeles. Had those Nike and Louis Vuitton sneakers been real, they would have been worth nearly half a billion dollars.
With the resale market for sneakers only growing, how does a consumer—or a brand, or the United States government, for that matter—combat the problem? Entrupy, a start-up founded in 2016 to authenticate luxury goods through algorithm-based technology, thinks it has the answer… GQ
