How To Spot a Fake Celine Phantom Handbag
Real, Celine Phantom
Fake, Celine Phantom
The fake Celine Phantom is what started this blog. £550 and fake! Read my blog post here to find out how I knew it was counterfeit and how I got my money back.
This bag was designed at the height of the big bag era. Utterly, massive. Be warned, this bag is heavy even when you have nothing in it. The Phantom is the bigger sister to the Luggage Bag. It was released in 2011 by Phoebe Philo a year after the Luggage bag. This is an incredibly well made bag - the craftsmanship and quality of the leather is seriously impressive.
If you’ve got your eye on the Celine Luggage (aka Phantom with the zip) which seems to be slowly creeping back onto the arms of a few celebs and tiktokers in 2025. Read this post and my review here.
The Celine Phantom is huge. Honestly, it’s big enough to double as a weekend bag, I actually used it to go home for a few days, just added a small crossbody and I was good to go. I bought mine from Designer Exchange in Knightsbridge, but truthfully… I made a mistake. I thought I was buying a soft beige - it turned out to be a much brighter yellow than expected. I’ve since sold it. I’m really drawn to classic, versatile colours, and the yellow just didn’t fit into my wardrobe. I don’t have the kind of money where a bag can only match one outfit - I need it to work with most of what I wear. And as much as I liked the size for work or travel, the colour meant it was never going to be a staple for me.
You can get incredible prices on the preloved market at the moment for these bags. This would be my top pick if you were going to buy one.
Celine Phantom, Designer Exchange, £695
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The Overall Look
I do not like the ‘Overall Look’ method of identifying if a bag is real or not. I would say the one and only thing that counterfeiters actually pay attention to is the overall look - that’s all they care about. They want you to pick up the bag and go '“I mean it looks real?” They rely on the fact you do not know how many stitches it should have, or what should be on the back of the zips. or what fabric the interior pocket should be made from.
Fake Celine Phantom
Real Celine Phantom
But, just from looking at it. In two seconds… How do I know this bag is fake?
Look closely at the horizontal row of stitching across the front of the bag. On an authentic piece, the stitching runs all the way up to the backwards ‘S’ or swoosh always. On a fake, the stitching stops short, leaving a visible gap. It’s a small detail, but a reliable giveaway.
Fake Celine. The horizontal line of stitching is about three stitches short.
Real Celine. The horizontal line of stitching runs all the way up to the ‘S’
Stitching
I love looking at stitching. This always trips up the counterfeiters.
The top two stitches of the real Celine Phantom are double stitched on both sides of the bag. The fake has triple looped the top stitch, but the stitch below it is only has a single stitch.
The stitching is very small on a real Celine Handbag, Notice how the fake Celine has one stitch for every two stitches on the real bag.
The biggest red flag is wonky stitching. Look at the top right corner of the handle on the fake dark beige bag (left) and how the stitching disappears behind the top piece of leather on the counterfeit bag. It also gets too close to the leather at the bottom and is not uniform.
Fake, Celine
Real, Celine
Celine Stamp
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 2013 and therefore has the accent above the e.
The counterfeit Celine
Authentic Celine
Yellow Celine = Real, Beige Celine = Fake
Made in Italy Stamp
This is stamped on the interior zip pocket. The font is thin and crisp.
Authentic
Counterfeit
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.
The format of a Celine date code typically follows a pattern of one letter, two letters, and four numbers separated by a dash.
Please note: A Celine date codes 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 and special editions!!) but it is close.
Ok, so in this blog post we are talking about my Celine Phantom which features one line of code.
Interpreting Celine date codes involves understanding the X-XX-#### format.
The last four digits represent the manufacturing date.
The first and third digits indicate the production week, and the second and fourth digits represent the year.
My bag was made in the 5th week of 2013.
The first three letters signify the factory location,
The stamping:
You will find the date code in the bottom right corner of the interior zip pocket.
The reverse of the leather tab is raw leather, and has not been finished.
The fake bag says it was made in the fourth week of 2011. The fake receipt which came with it says this bag was purchased in 2013. Do I believe the bag which had a seven month waitlist was sat on a shelf in Barneys for 2 years? No I do not. You have to cross check the information you have with all the other information you have about the bag.
Counterfeit
Real
Zip
The hardware pull on a real Celine Phantom is attached by circular hardware - not a D Ring. Whoever made the fake, got it wrong. Also if Celine were going to use a D Ring - they would not use one that had such a massive gap, and was incredibly flimsy.
The Fake Celine
The Real Celine
The Receipt
The receipt was from Barney’s in Las Vegas – but the paper was thicker than any till receipt paper I’ve experienced and the shape was larger than usual.There was no way this was a legit receipt (can I say I love the touch of blacking out the card details, as if its real! actually made me laugh)
I hope this has helped you and given you that additional piece of knowledge xx
