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black high heels shoes on white background image by sarit saliman from Fotolia.com

Unknown to many, Burberry originally started out as an influential and reputable outfitter for the great outdoors. British officers wore the Burberry "Tielocken" coat during the Boer war and Burberry outfitted Captain Roald Amundsen to the South Pole in 1911. Nowadays, Burberry's image is strictly as a luxury designer of coats, scarves, dresses, bags and shoes. Burberry shoes rival other high fashion houses in style and quality. Thus, copycats often mimic their designs, selling them at a fraction of the price and quality. With a little awareness, you can easily start spotting fakes.

Visit the official Burberry website and look at the authentic "nova check" and classic "Burberry check" plaid patterns. Compare them the with the patterns on the shoes in question. Burberry fakes will often make a slight mistake with the patterns, such as making a square tan when it should be white or making a line pink when it should be red. Also, the lines should always be symmetrically spaced from one another.

Hold up the right and left shoe and examine the patterns. The shoes should look absolutely identical with the pattern running in the exact same manner on each shoe without the slightest deviation.

Look at the Burberry logo. Some shoes have a silver or gold-toned tag at the heel of the shoe, some have Burberry inscribed on the sole, some have a "Burberry" on the interior of the shoes. Regardless, the R's in "Burberry" should always have a slight curve. The curve occurs on the very edge of the diagonal leg of the "R." Fakes never have this detail.

Smell the leather, if the shoes are supposed to be leather. While imitators can utilize faux leather that has the same appearance and texture of the real thing, they cannot duplicate the smell of genuine leather.

Tip

Any loose threads or stitches is a dead giveaway of a fake.

When in doubt, visit burberry.com to do a side by side comparison of the item in question and a picture of an authentic Burberry product.