The Counterfeit Crochet Project

The Counterfeit Crochet Project (Critique of a Political Economy) was started in 2006 by Stephanie Syjuco, an artist from San Francisco, who has always had an interest in "piracy and bootlegging as they apply to today's globalized economy." Syjuco started a website, inviting fellow crocheters to join her in counterfeiting high-end, luxury designer handbags. Each contributor chooses their handbag of choice and replicates it in their own unique manner, using the basic design and logo, but adding flair when necessary. For Syjuco, the resulting "mistranslation is quite beautiful." She provides some patterns for knockoff logos, such as Chanel, Fendi, and Gucci, but also loves seeing what other pattern makers come up with. The Counterfeit Crochet Project has been featured in exhibitions all over the world, from China to the Philippines to Turkey, and Syjuco has given workshops on counterfeiting in conjunction with these exhibitions, while also teaching crochet in the gallery spaces. Taking over a gallery space with tables, cheap yarn, and crocheting lessons is a secondary juxtaposition of our typical gallery environment of "high art" with an interactive playground-like atmosphere.

From The Counterfeit Crochet Project's website:

It seems to me that ingenuity and inventiveness lays at the heart of those who decide to make things for themselves. Crafting is overlooked, even denigrated as a viable 'vernacular' form of expression. I view the impetus to handmake something in an era of mass production a personal and perhaps even political act, a way to give yourself agency to create and produce in an age of standardization and retail.

Syjuco says you can look at the project as outsourcing of labor, gathering crocheters to execute these handbags, but she prefers to look at it as a collaboration between likeminded individuals. Either way, they are simultaneously undermining and promoting these luxury goods... some people would look at the bags and think they must really love the designer, or that the bag could possibly be an authentic new design from the fashion houses. But mostly they are taking using handcraft to mock highly crafted design. Of course, some of the bags are made in China, but some of the bags/items are couture - completely made by hand. Isn't it ironic?

Nevertheless, Syjuco is gathering the masses through network society to campaign against issues of consumerism, materialism, industrialization, and all other issues inherent in capitalism. And through the exhibition of these materials, she is allowing the makers to contribute to the vision, while still maintaining ownership of their fabrication, thus the subject as owner/maker is clearly defined. Value, on the other hand, is somewhat fuzzy because it straddles the line between Value as artpiece or movement and Value as was first assigned through the creation of the authentic luxury good. See a video on the project for more explanation and imagery of the exhibitions and submissions.