How To Spot a Fake Celine Luggage Handbag [circa 2014- Phoebe Philo Era]

14 Jun

I bought my bag from Hardlyeverwornit, it came with the original store tag and receipt. Read my full review here.

Grab a green juice and lets begin, I think you are going to need this how to guide in 2025. They are currently a good price on resale…so if you are thinking about it, now might be the time, because she is totally back.

The Overall Look

I do not love this method for authenticating bags because the overall look is what counterfeiters focus on the most. The little details and the interior is where you can spot a fake super quick. But a couple of things to pay attention to at the start.

The Wings (side of the bag), counterfeiters make the bag too wide. The wings at the side protrude a lot more than on the real deal and on fakes the wings are wider at the bottom.
The Handles, the best way I can describe this is to show you… look at the image below. See how the handle is attached to the bag, it almost looks as if its narrower at the bottom and the handle loop gets wider a third of the way up. On fakes the handle just drops straight down and the handles look parallel to each other all the way down to where the bag attaches to the bag.
The Bag itself, counterfeiters tend to make the bag a lot wider, it looks squatter in appearance.

My real Celine Luggage Handbag (Mini Size)

The Celine Stamp (Logo 2012-2018)

A quick side step into how the Celine logo has changed throughout the years.

**Credit:** 1ooologos - Fantastic website about the history of brand logos. Seriously check it out (when you’ve finished here :)

Back to my bag.
Where do counterfeiters make the errors? They position the Celine in the wrong place (normally it is positioned too low on the bag), they make it too big and they make the lettering too thin. My bag is from 2014 and therefore has the accent above the e.

The Celine lettering is 2.5cm (wide) x 0.4cm (high)
The Celine letters are spaced 02.cm apart from each other.
Celine is positioned 1.3cm down from the top edge of the leather
There is a 0.2cm gap between Celine and Paris
Paris is a lot crisper. The letters are 1.2cm (wide) x 0.2cm (high)
The gold foil isn’t super shiny… it’s a matte gold with a slight shimmer.

Date Code & Leather Tab

Celine bags are identified by date codes rather than serial numbers. These codes, consisting of letters and numbers embossed inside the bag, denote the location and manufacturing date. Unlike serial numbers, Celine's date codes are not unique and can be repeated across multiple bags.

Please note: A Celine date code varies depending on factors like the style, season and year. They may appear on a leather tag or directly embossed on the lining, with variations in embossing thickness, tab shape, font, and placement [the list goes on]. Some bags feature single lines of date codes, while others have two lines indicating production start and completion end dates. Additionally, some bags include the phrase "Made in Italy" along with the date codes. It’s not as confusing as Balenciaga’s system...(which even has variations depending on hardware!!) but it is close.

Ok, so in this blog post we are talking about my Celine Luggage which features two lines of code.

Interpreting Celine date codes involves understanding the X-XX-#### format.
In the first line: the first three letters signify the factory location and the last four digits represent the start of production.
the first and third digits indicate the production week, and the second and fourth digits represent the year.
In the second line:the first three letters signify the factory location (this bag was finished at a different factory) and the last four digits represent the completion of the bag.
the first and third digits indicate the production week, and the second and fourth digits represent the year.
My bag was started in the 3rd week of 2014, and completed in the 4th week of 2014.

The stamping:

You will find the date code in the bottom right corner of the interior zip pocket.

The leather tab is 3cm wide x 2cm high. The reverse of the leather tab is raw leather, and has not been finished.
Notice the first line of code is noticeably thinner and smaller than the second line. Counterfeiters have paid attention to this - but in my opinion they have made the second line too big. If the difference in font looks very different to the below - question your bag!

The Celine Stamp and ‘Made in Italy’

The stitching sits 3mm in from the edge of the leather. Counterfeiters put the stitching a lot closer to the edge, they make it wonky and tends to only leave a 1mm gap.
The leather tab measures 7.8cm (wide) across the top and is 1.3cm (high). Counterfeiters tend to make this leather tab a lot thicker and shorter. When they do this it means they end up stamping the Celine Paris in the wrong position.
The ‘CELINE’ is positioned 1cm in from the edge of the leather (from where the C curves around at the top)
The ‘CELINE’ measures 1.5cm (wide) x 0.3cm (high)
The ‘MADE IN ITALY’ is 2cm (wide) x 0.2cm (high) and it is positioned 1cm in from the edge of the leather (measuring from the tip of the ‘y’)
The ‘MADE IN ITALY’ letters are incredibly close together - but they do not touch. Lots of dupes give up on this and just blur the letters together.
Please excuse the red nails! (I went through a red shellac phase) then went back to my 18 year love affair of a nude nail.

Stitching and the Bags Structure

Stitching is where the counterfeits fall down.

-The stitching on a Celine bag is incredibly uniform, it runs in very straight lines and consists of single small stitches.

There are 8.5 stitches per inch.
The stitching surrounding the leather handle attachments has 8 stitches running along the top.
Dupes find it very hard to outline the leather without the stitches going wonky, or falling into the top piece of leather. (see the stitching fall behind the handle on the below beige handle)
The sewing machine used on a fake product is also cheaper - see below how it makes larger holes when it pierces the leather compared to the real version.

The fake Celine, See how the stitching falls between the leather on the top right.

Each corner of the bag also has a single stitch looped over four times to secure all the leather pieces together.

The Side of the Bag

This leather loop holds the zip tail in place.

Note: a really good easy spot of a counterfeit: The piece of leather which covers the bottom stop of the zip cannot be pulled through the fixed leather loop. (if you really, really forced it, and bent the leather - you could probably do it just* but probably with damage, I tried to pull it through and couldn’t) On fakes the leather is bad quality - and you could pull it through with ease.

Look how the leather zip stop is larger than the loop.

I promise you. Celine (very rarely makes mistakes) the stitching will be the same on all their bags. These squares of stitching comprise of:

-6 Stitches along the top and bottom

-8 Stitches along either side

-The diagonal lines are 10 stitches each. (5 stitches into the middle)

The back of the bag

The back of the bag has a similar leather loop to the side.

But the amount of stitches are different - and the leather loop is taller than the side.

-5 Stitches along the top and bottom

-13 Stitches along either side

-The diagonal lines are 14 stitches each. (7 stitches into the middle)

The Zip Pull

I wanted to highlight the zip pull stitching, as its quite unusual - instead of putting two small stitches along the top, Celine has just used one stitch but looped it three times.

Hardware

The main zip features an 8 on the slider
The two smaller zips feature an I on the slider
The back of all the zips are blank
The zip is attached to the pull by a D Ring - not a circle

The Snap Closure

The snap closure is very deep. Counterfeiters pick shallow, cheap snap closures which do not have the same security that the Celine snap closure has.

The Bottom of the Bag

The bottom of the bag has serious weight to it.
The stitches are sewn deeply into the leather to hold everything in place.
The square feet measure 1 cm x 1 cm - but (and this is the bit dupes miss) it is 0.7cm high. Also, notice how the edges to the square are slightly soft and curved.
The pieces of leather are thick. Fakes try to save costs and they construct this bag using thinner pieces of leather.