Buyer Beware - Fake Japanese Fabrics

Kokka Fabrics Big Little Red Riding Hood and Flowers

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Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that apparently there are sellers online who sell cheap imitations of some of the more popular Japanese fabrics.  I probably shouldn't be surprised by this, but it just hadn't crossed my mind that fakes are being sold on etsy and other onlines sites. 

By "cheap" I don't mean the price, but the quality.  The Japanese fabrics are well loved for two reasons--the wonderful prints and the quality fabric.  The knock-off fabrics are reproductions of the print on inferior fabric, but at the premium fabric price.   

If you buy the Japanese prints online, you might want to read more at these links:

• GermanDolls shares her experience with fake Kokka prints on her blog.  The photos of the selvedge comparisons are very helpful.

• rastis100 shares some great info about how to avoid buying cheap knock-offs of your favorite Japanese prints. 

• badskirt shares some tips for spotting flaws in Kokka prints.

Comments

[tia]

I think I recently bought some imitation Japanese fabric from a shop on Etsy. They were out of China, so I should have suspected. The base cloth is almost like burlap. Oh well, live and learn. I shall be more investigative in the future.

[Kim]

I have noticed that there are some Etsy sellers (who shall remain nameless but whose prices and location should give them away) whose fabric is decidedly rougher and not of the same quality as the authentic Japanese linen-cotton blends. I never experienced this with a specific pattern that I had some of the authentic stuff with which to compare it, but the threadcount, handfeel, coarseness, etc. gave away its cheapness and low quality. I decided to just stick with small handful of trusted sellers from then on, regardless of pricing.

[Jen]

Wow... I can't believe people are selling fake fabric. That's insane. I'm glad I read this because I probably wouldn't have thought too hard about it before buying something.