Guide to Carhartt Workwear Gen vs Fake

Intro

Carhartt workwear fakes exist but they are rare in proportion to the number of genuine Carhartt products. Carhartt continues to gain popularity in the streetwear and fashion world and prices of the older discontinued styles keep increasing. Certain sellers attempt to capitalize on this by producing fakes and misleading buyers. This post discusses examples of fakes and their common features. Imgur album.

(The examples in this guide pertain to Carhartt workwear. Click here for the Carhartt WIP fake guide.)

Types of Fakes

r/Carhartt - Carhartt Workwear Fake / Replica Guide. Ask authenticity related questions here!

(A) Logo-swapped Mesa Ridge jacket , (B) Replica of J97 Detroit Jacket, (C) Custom-dyed 6BLJ Detroit Jacket, (D) “Re-worked” jacket

Logo Swap / Addition – These are the most common fakes because they are the easiest to produce. Carhartt logos are simply added to clothing made by other brands or generic, unbranded clothing. If another brand’s original logos were present, they are usually removed and replaced by Carhartt’s logos.
Replicas – These require more effort to produce than other fakes because they are designed to be as close to a specific genuine Carhartt style as possible. The replicas are higher quality and the flaws are less obvious compared to other fakes. Most originated in Asia but are becoming more common on USA selling sites.
“Reworked” – This refers to a clothing item that is made of bits and pieces of other clothing items, almost always multi-colored and often made of several kinds of fabric. Reworked products aren’t the same kind of fake as the others. They are usually comprised of several non-Carhartt elements and since it is difficult to prove the origin of the others elements, they should be treated similarly as fakes.
Limited Edition / Rare Fakes – Certain Carhartt items have custom embroidery, such as the 1990s 6BLJ Detroit Jacket that was given to Tommy Boy Records employees/affiliates and the RNJ001 Detroit Jackets that was given crew members of the “Interstellar” film. It is possible for someone to add this custom embroidery to ordinary 6BLJ and RNJ001 jackets as pass them off as the rare versions.
Other – Sometimes a genuine Carhartt product is altered to mislead buyers into thinking they are purchasing something different than the actual item. Examples are Women’s or Kids’ styles with the tags removed, clothing that is dyed a different color, the addition/customization of logo patches and tags, and claiming recent styles are “vintage”, which is often conflated with wear and fading.

Tags

There are many variations of genuine Carhartt style/care tags. The format and size has changed over and over again throughout the years. A tag that looks unfamiliar to you does not necessarily mean that it is fake.

The Detroit Jacket replicas circulating on selling sites has tags with many errors. An example of one is provided above, on the left, with the errors highlighted in red. The right side depicts one the many formats of authentic tags. Not all authentic J97 PTL jackets will have a tag with this format but they should not have the errors that the fake tags do. The errors include “c” being swapped for “e” and “e” for “a”, incorrect capitalizations and missing accent marks and the Spanish and French translations are inconsistent with the English size.

Tag that appears on many fakes

That being said, there are many Carhartt fakes with tags that are obviously fake. A very common one seen mainly on Asian selling sites is pictured above.

The Carhartt “C” logo patch is rectangular instead of square and a narrower style/care tag is sewn to the bottom of fit. The care tags on these fakes always have the same numbers on one side (usually the front): “196 158 5314B”. The other side says, “Union Made in U.S.A. ACTWU Amalgamated Clothing & Textile Workers Union” in blue font. Sometimes the tag is reversed where the union side is on the front.

Fake Active Jacket with the 53142B tag

Above is an example of one such fake with the “53142B” tag. It is meant to look like one of Carhartt’s Quilted Flannel-Lined Firm Duck Active Jackets.

FRS003 DNY tag that appears on many fakes

Many fakes also reproduce the style/care tag from an actual Carhartt style. If the style number does not match the type of product on which the tag appears, it is likely fake. A common tag that is copied is the one from the FRS003 Flame-Resistant Twill Shirt. Buyers can easily determine these are fake if they are familiar with reading the tag. “FRS003 DNY” at the bottom left of this kind of tag are the style and color codes, respectively. A quick Google search usually yields the Dungarees.com page for that style.

Fake Chore Coat with fake FRS003 style/care tag

Above is a fake Chore Coat with the FRS003 style/care tag attached to the inner neck. Obviously a Chore Coat is a not a Flame-Resistant Twill Shirt.

The top two tags / labels appear on some “Reworked” Carhartt jackets. The bottom two appear on genuine Carhartt.

The so-called “Reworked” Carhartt jackets often have no style/care tag at all. However, there are some circulating that replicate the tag for the J149 Thermal-Lined Hooded Sweatshirt as seen above. The fake tag is shorter and wider than the authentic tag. Additionally, the inner neck logo patch and size tab are irregularly shaped and the font is typically narrower than it is on the authentic inner neck logo. Keep in mind that not all Carhartt products have the same inner neck logo or style/care tag format. Some don’t have either. Therefore, a product without them or different ones is not automatically fake.

Logos

The top two logo patches appear on some fake Carhartt. The bottom two appear on genuine Carhartt.

The Carhartt “C” logo patches on fakes are often irregular in shape and/or have errant stitching. However, it is worth nothing that sometimes genuine Carhartt products also have crooked or incomplete stitching on the logo patch. Poor stitching alone isn’t usually enough to determine something is fake. Fakes usually have a combination of several “red flag” issues.

Other Brands with Added Carhartt Logos

Mesa Ridge jacket with swapped and added Carhartt logos (left), Original Mesa Ridge jacket (right)

Many fakes are simply products from other brands that have Carhartt logos added to them. The above example is a bomber jacket made by Mesa Ridge. The inner neck Mesa Ridge logo was removed and replaced with a cloth Carhartt “C” logo patch. An additional leatherette Carhartt “C” logo patch was added to front left pocket. The jacket was obviously modified to look like one of Carhartt’s Southwest Jackets.

Above is another example of logo swapping. The original inner neck logos on a CornerStone J763 Jacket were removed and replaced with a Carhartt “C” logo patch. Another Carhartt “C” logo patch was added to the chest beneath the zippered pocket. Obviously the chest pocket and logo are on the wrong side as genuine Carhartt Detroit Jackets have a left-side chest pocket.

Replicas

Replica J97 Detroit Jacket (left), Genuine J97 Detroit Jacket (right)

The producers of replicas pay much more attention to detail and try to recreate an actual Carhartt style as closely as possible. In the example above, they have attempted to replicate the extremely sought after J97 Blanket-Lined Sandstone Duck Detroit Jacket in the “Moss” color. This replication is much more convincing than the others. At first glance, many people might not think twice about it, but examining it closer reveals that it is not genuine.

The most obvious error is that the lining. It is not a lining that was used in the J97 Blanket-Lined Sandstone Duck Detroit Jacket. However, often the replica lining is similar to the flannel lining used in the J124 Flannel-Lined Nylon Detroit Jacket as well as the J138 Flannel-Lined Firm Duck Active Jacket, both of which are authentic Carhartt styles that may be confused as fakes.

The small size tab seen on some of the replicas was also not one that Carhartt has used on their products. Replicas often come with style/care tags that are rife with spelling and formatting errors. Most notably is the size “Medium” misspelled at “Mdium” and “Mexico” spelled as “Mexieo.” Sellers may remove the tag to hide its flaws.