Sometimes, thrifting can feel too good to be true. One Redditor found a vintage Yves Saint Laurent trench coat at their local thrift store and posted about it on the r/ThriftStoreHauls subreddit, but they had their reservations.

"Found this (probably fake) Yves Saint Laurent wool coat. $20 and it at least feels nice," they wrote.

The Reddit community was quick to chime in with corrections. 

"Doesn't look fake," one said.

Another community member suggested that this designer item was "not fake. Just licensed, not as desirable but still nice," further explaining that the big fashion houses like YSL, Dior, and Chanel all make their products in Europe, but they also license their designs to be made in American workshops.

"A company over here was allowed to produce the product while using the name," they added. "It might've been made in a [Brooks Brothers] factory or something like that, just with the designer name."

"Starting roughly in the '70s, a lot of designer (and especially couture) brands made their money by licensing their brands to other companies — fragrance companies, for example," another commenter explained. "This was especially true in menswear, where a lot of womenswear designers (like YSL) licensed their brands to menswear makers."

This means high fashion designs were hitting the U.S. ready-to-wear market at a slight discount. However, remnants from this era are, as another commenter said, "still expensive, still high quality fabrics." More importantly, this vintage garment has lasted through years of wear already and will continue to. 

Thrift shops are a great place to find the kind of high-quality clothing that used to be more commonplace, and as an added bonus, these valuable items are sold for pennies on the dollar. 

Current trends of overconsumerism have had many negative effects on our world — the immense amount of clothing waste ending up in landfills being a massive one — but more insidiously, regular clothes aren't built to last anymore. This fuels consumerist behaviors of cheap clothing that's easy to discard, leading to major waste problems.

Which of these factors would most effectively motivate you to recycle old clothes and electronics? Giving me money back 💰 Letting me trade for new stuff 👕 Making it as easy as possible ⚡ Keeping my stuff out of landfills 🗑️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

"Every year, people in the United States throw out more than 34 billion pounds of used textiles," a Boston University study noted.

Overall, this is an excellent thrift shop find that saved this valuable item from a landfill and also could potentially make this thrifter money. There are countless great options for reselling hidden gems found in thrift shops. As trends come and go, vintage garments will go the distance.

Other Redditors loved the OP's vintage find.

"I thrifted a vintage YSL trench a few years ago ... still the nicest thing I own," one user wrote.

"Definitely not fake," another Redditor said. "Excellent find."

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