Kelly is an internationally acclaimed photographer, recognized for his extensive achievements in the fashion capitals of Europe. After extensive experience in tailoring and haute couture, Shelly has served as a stylist to the world’s top photographers and models for many years.
Kelly&Shelly has been delivering replica luxury bags and accessories online since June 2018. Our goal is to provide outstanding quality, superior customer experience, and tremendous value.
It was the fall of 2001 in New York. We just watched the Twin Towers collapsing from our rooftop, and our city came to a standstill. Every enterprise was disrupted, and our photography business came to a halt. Confined to our Lower East Side apartment, Shelly got her dusting sewing machine out of the box and started to sew handbags. Kelly watching her creations mounting on the Phillipe Starck sofa mentioned, why don’t we start a business?
Nothing easier than that, right? Shelly creates the styles, and Kelly is taking some photos. – Well, not so fast. A lengthy rough, but a fascinating journey into the global fashion trade has started.
The first stop was the street market on West Broadway. Somehow we got a license to sell our first bags in the cold dark weekends of autumn 2001. The demand was encouraging, and our brand was born.
Kelly was asked to do a photo shoot for a fashion magazine. One fashion model came back from Shanghai with a show-stopping handbag, from the local Shanghai Tang store. A baguette-shaped bag in green fake fur with a slim riveted black leather shoulder strap. Just identical to one of our very own designs. That day an age, this was a very unique style. Did we have the first encounter with the global knock-off trade?
Seven train New York – Two stops ’til fashion.
Entirely possible, we were convinced somebody picked up the style in Soho and wired it to China, but this is hard to prove. Moreover, we didn’t even care. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
Later we moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and opened a workshop. We hired artisans and were proud “Made in Manhattan” designers. We rejected knocking off anything, and South East Asia was not on the map. We enjoyed taking only a few stops with the Seven train to visit factories and source the material and hardware in Manhattan’s Fashion District.
Over time we got increasingly dissatisfied with the level of quality. The sample maker’s prices were outrageous. Workers were unreliable, unqualified, and the sourcing of materials and hardware too limited. We could see the diminishing Midtown Fashion District Right in front of us. The Fashion District was once a vibrant, relevant production hub that was reduced to a few shops hidden in the numerous loft buildings of Midtown.
A large American corporation we worked for suggested to explore China. We threw all our ideas about China overboard and went to Guangzhou in the fall of 2007. The third-largest Chinese city 130 km North of Hong Kong. We achieved in 10 days as much as five years before that in New York, we were intoxicated.
The numerous fabric and hardware malls were larger than one block in Midtown Manhattan. A designer’s dream came true, factories, the markets for hardware, leather, and fabrics were all in reach with the newly built subway.
Fakes were omnipresent and officially illegal to sell. We passed a gate with a poster “Counterfeits are Illegal” and discovered a massive market with hundreds of booths selling fake luxury watches. Back then, the overall quality was inferior, and the idea of copying was to make “PARADA or CUCCY bags with an original design or the other way around, a handbag labeled HERMÈS with only a loosely inspired design by HERMÈS.
In the last years, more and more original high-quality replica handbags popped up, they are still hard to find unless you are an insider. The factories and showrooms are hiding their counterfeit from the government controllers. Opposite to popular belief, police raids are numerous and unpredictable. Shops and factories are shut frequently.
Many factories, it is said there are a few thousand, are represented in gigantic malls in Shenzhen at the Hong Kong Border. Every luxury brand is manufactured in a different factory.
Luohu, China-Hong Kong border. The place where the magic happens.
A few years ago, Kelly was looking for a present for his sister. Friends recommended a store in one of those infamous Shenzhen malls. He was shown an unsuspicious accessories store with little traffic in the back of the building. The store owners introduced me to Kiko.
In her office, bulky product catalogs of replica handbags stacked up with every brand and style you can ask for. You can choose different qualities original, AAA, best quality, and else.
Kelly picked a LOUIS VUITTON x Fragment bag for himself and a SAINT LAURENT shoulder bag for his sister. The quality was impeccable, and the bags are carried until today. That was the beginning of LUXURYKELLY.