Miami Student

Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Campus

PR Vision and the International Anti-Counterfeiting Corporation attempt to inform the Miami community of possible negative destinations of money spent on counterfeit items.

Thursday night a packed house at Stadium Bar & Grille played host to PR Vision's Spot the Fake Fashion Show as students modeled both counterfeit and authentic fashion items before an audience to see who could tell the difference between the items.

PR Vision, a student public relations firm and sub-committee of Miami University's Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter, hosted the event in conjunction with the International Anti-Counterfeiting Corporation (IACC) in order to raise awareness on Miami's campus about counterfeit products, according to PR Vision member sophomore Betsy King.

King continued to add that PR Vision had been working on the event since September 2007, setting up booths for many days around campus, trying to raise awareness about the cons of counterfeit products such as poor quality, drug trafficking and child labor.

She also noted that luxury items such as the ones displayed Thursday only account for four percent of the counterfeit industry and other items, such as pharmaceuticals and airplane parts, are also major components.

The event began with the help of some live entertainment from musical group Cavashawn, formerly known as Marking Twain, before J.D. Boeckman of PR Vision got the show started by encouraging the crowd to "Rock it Real" in reference to wearing authentic items.

As the student models strutted down the runway clad in both authentic and counterfeit articles of clothing-before revealing who was wearing what-members of the audience had a difficult time distinguishing what was real.

"The event was cool (but) it was hard to spot the real from the fake because you couldn't see the detail work and couldn't see the linings," said Miami junior Jessie Niewold. "It's a dark place and you're far away from the bags. We were sitting back and just enjoying the show."

Sophomore Vince Juron also had a difficult time being able to tell what was real from what was fake, posing the question of why someone would actually want to pay all the extra money for something nobody could even tell was real.

Senior Teresa Boucas, hired by PR Vision to be the account executive with IACC, felt that although the audience had a more difficult time than expected spotting the fake items, the event went extremely well.

"The whole point is that it might be hard to tell the difference, but really you should take into account where the money that you're spending is going," said Boucas, who said that fashion counterfeiting was targeted toward Miami because of its status as a "fashion-forward" campus. "Go spend (your money) on something unique, something cool, and it doesn't have to be brand name, but we just wanted everyone to know where this money was going, even $10."

After the models revealed who was clad in counterfeit items and who was able to "Rock it Real," Cavashawn played more live music and the winner of a $500 raffle was announced.

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