I had this post up on my site as of almost a year ago, but due to some website issues over the summer, it miraculously disappeared, however with the power of Google cache (and remembering various things) I have resurrected it. Enjoy…

I recently had the lucky experience of purchasing a fake Abercrombie & Fitch polo shirt off of eBay. While not intending to buy a fake shirt, I did have my suspicions about buying A&F over eBay, though I have successfully bought some stuff before! Being a nice eBay citizen and everything, I thought that I should at least write an eBay guide as to how to spot fakes and the main differences between real shirts and fakes, but eBay has a rather odd (and in my opinion stupid) photo policy where they wouldn’t allow any of my Flickr photos to be linked to, so scrap that, I’m gonna post a guide on here and see if anyone finds it useful!

The purpose of this guide is to complement the other ‘How to spot fake Abercrombie clothes’ guides available on eBay by providing a photo comparison between a fake polo shirt (bought here on eBay), and a real one (bought in the A&F at The Grove in LA). The fake shirt in question is the Broadhead Trail polo shirt in grey, with “A & Fitch” written on it. For the purposes of this comparison I’m comparing it with a Broadhead Trail polo in Blue (saying “Abercrombie 92″), which I think is a fair enough comparison – so the only differences should be in the motif, the colour and the serial number. But this wasn’t necessarily true!

Firstly, I received this from the seller in a plastic bag, which is hardly A&F style presentation – so that doesn’t bode particularly well from the start. Once removed from the plastic, the feel of the shirt is very thin and definitely feels cheaper than a real A&F polo shirt. It also does not exhibit any of the ‘worn-in’ look of the real shirt, this is shown in a few pictures below. Look particularly at where the buttons are, this is clearly more worn on the blue (real) shirt.

Some of the other guides mention about the buttons being different and looking odd on the counterfeit shirts, and this, while subtle, is true! Notice the writing on the buttons and the placement of the writing on the buttons is different on each shirt. The real one has the ‘Abercrombie’ slightly away from the centre of the button, while the fake one does not! There is also a different font on the buttons, with the real buttons on the blue shirt appearing to have more bold writing on them! When looking at the side angle of the buttons, it is clear that they are different in that the fake one is obviously more of a two layer button and has a differently coloured underside.

The sewn in label also exhibits the different fonts. Looking closely and comparing the two, the ‘Established 1892′ and the ‘Unparalleled In Quality’ differ between the two shirts, with the fake one being more blocky. The writing of the ‘Abercrombie & Fitch’ is also different between the two, though more subtly, look at the base of the letter ‘b’. The tags below the sewn in label stating the size are also different dimensions and say different things – pretty odd for the same range of clothing.

The ‘Muscle’ tag also exhibits the same font difference, but it is also a different tag, with the fake one being wider.

As I mentioned before, the fake one is clearly less worn in, this is shown further around the hem on the bottom of the shirt and around the cuff…

The spare buttons are also worth mentioning in that there are two with the real shirt, and only one with the fake, and their placement in relation to the care instructions tag is different. The colour of the thread used to sew them in differs too, with the fake one having a thread that shows up on the outside of the shirt, while the blue (real) one does not.

The fit of the shirt is also worth mentioning as it obviously shows up as being fake when it does fit the same way. The cuffs are way too loose and long, and the shirt is generally too baggy. The collar, while having fairly thick material, is not thick enough to feel like the real Abercrombie shirt.

Finally, probably the most obvious difference is the incorrect tags and the tags just generally being odd. I was (and still am) pretty sure (actually I’m definitely sure) that this was a Polo shirt and not a short sleeve Henley, so then why does the tag say that this is a Henley? When I google the item number (24013206) I get an Abercrombie Henley, so it clearly isn’t the right tags. It also has the wrong price, it says $49.50, when this Polo shirt is actually $59.50. The thick ‘Abercrombie and Fitch’ tag is also obviously different too.

Anyway, it seems like I’ve gone into a fairly obscene amount of detail on this, but I just wanted to provide adequate photographic evidence of the kind of fake clothes available on eBay. If you have any questions, then please ask. Good luck on spotting fakes!