A college student strolls through the sidewalk kiosks of New York’s Canal Street. She browses through handbags, jackets and shoes with designer logos: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Fendi. She finds a Gucci bag that matches her shoes and pays the merchant $40 for a designer bag that would cost 20 times as much at a store on Madison Ave.
Meanwhile, in the basement of a nearby building, a West African immigrant is locked in a tiny room. Day after day he glues fake designer labels to generic handbags, for sale in New York’s Chinatown and in similar markets across the U.S.
