So, this isn’t really a museum, in the sense of an institution devoted to the disinterested advancement of public knowledge. Rather, it’s a display of fake goods juxtaposed with genuine ones, organized by a manufacturers’ association which wants you to pay a couple of Euro for the privilege of walking through an infomercial about the evils of counterfeiting.
You will learn something (especially if you can read the all-French signage) – for me it was that there are almost-perfect counterfeit versions of cosmetics, food products, and… wait for it…. CONDOMS, leading to an increase in my standing anxiety level about face cream, Nescafe, and sex.
However, the real fun of these couple of rooms is the hysterical tone and over-reaching claims made in the signage, composed by manufacturers who, for example, refer to counterfeiting as “industrial terrorism.” At various points, they tell you that you shouldn’t buy fakes because:
- they are made by child labor (while, of course, genuine goods never are)
- they will kill you (e.g., fake cell phones present the risk of “explosion, overheating, and catching on fire”)
- they are ugly (a claim made about all the fashion fakes, along with the plaint that counterfeit fashion leads to the “irredeemable banalization” of luxury goods)
- they are made from “dubious ingredients, such as animal urine” (this on a display of those imitation, “smells like” perfumes, which I don’t really think count as counterfeits, and, besides – urine? Really?).
There’s also a small display of art forgeries, which are mostly so bad that it takes a while before you can figure out whom the imitated artist is supposed to be.
So: check it out if you’re a hypochondriac or a critic of capitalism in the neighborhood with a half-hour to spare. Otherwise, you can replicate the whole experience by screaming “animal pee industrial terrorist!” at anyone you see carrying a fake Louis Vuitton bag.
