When the coveted 1990s graphic T-shirt arrived, the material, cut and stitches looked genuine. Yet Frank Carson, owner of Leisure Centre, a secondhand shop based in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, was suspicious.
In the end it came down to the care tag. One letter that was a “c” should have been an “o”. “That was the only way you could tell it was fake,” he says. “It’s being done with shrewd skill. I had a friend who spent £800 on 10 Akira T-shirts only to find they were all fake.”
