In 2010, at 3 a.m. in Shanghai’s Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone, the lights in the LV OEM factory were still bright. Me—a leather craftsman from Haining, Zhejiang—was applying wax to the final stitch with a bone folder. Eight years had passed, and my employee ID was #1079. My hands knew every curve of the classic bags, and my eyes could distinguish between imported and domestic calfskin in 0.5 seconds.

That year, I won the Asia-Pacific Regional Artisan of the Year award. During the ceremony, the French quality control director patted my shoulder and said, “Your double-needle backstitch technique is steadier than the master craftsmen in Paris.” But when I suggested improvements to the edge finishing, the response was, “Chinese factories only follow the blueprints.”

In 2016, the 200th Capucines bag I personally stitched was labeled “Made in France” and displayed in the Plaza 66 boutique, priced at two years of my salary. At lunch that day, a new intern, Xiao Zhang, asked me, “Master, why do we have to wear gloves just to touch the bags we made?”

I began experimenting during breaks: using the same roll of leather, the same tools, and strictly adhering to the craftsmanship standards to replicate a Speedy 25. When I placed the two bags side by side on the inspection table, even the French QC manager hesitated for 30 seconds before pointing out the “fake”—and the one he identified was actually the genuine article.

During the 2018 Qingming Festival holiday, I found a batch of leather scraps in the factory waste area discarded for “stitch angle deviation of 0.5 degrees.” That evening, I left the factory with the awl and knives that had been with me for eight years. At the security booth, Old Li, the guard, looked at my toolbox and said, “These tools are worth more than the new German machines in the factory, huh?” I smiled. “Worth more than some people’s conscience.”

I rented a small shop in Haining Leather City. The first batch of products was 18 Neverfull bags, each meticulously crafted to the original “three-in, three-out” stitching standard. When the first customer insisted on taking one to a secondhand store for authentication, I sliced open the sample bag right then: “Look here—the authentic uses No. 110 linen thread, but we use No. 112 because it’s more durable.”

A leather care specialist from Suzhou once brought in a client’s Alma for comparison and discovered our edge-dyeing process had two more coats than the authentic. Recently, we even launched a “spot the difference” service: clients can book appointments to bring their boutique purchases to our studio, where we conduct side-by-side inspections under 200x magnification.

We are not “copying”—we are upholding the craftsmanship standards abandoned by the brands. When you receive twelve parts quality for one-tenth the price, you’re not buying a substitute. You’re casting a vote for the hidden truths of this industry.