Kayt Turner: ‘Her arms rattle with her fake bracelets. And, if you ignore her green wrists, who can really tell?’

I’VE no-one to blame but myself. Everyone knows that if something seems too good to be true it probably is.

But, all the same, when an offer of a lovely Tiffany bangle for a completely unrealistic price came up last week, I jumped at it. After all, who doesn’t love a bit of Tiffany bling? It wasn’t even for me. As always, I was thinking of others – I know, just like me to be selfless. The Teenager reaches a milestone birthday soon and I thought it would be nice to get her her first bit of statement jewellery. You’re never too young to start on good pieces. Although, obviously, if it arrived and I thought she wouldn’t really like it, then I wouldn’t exactly be averse to having another wee bauble or two myself.

The first clue – aside from the glaringly obvious one of the bargain price – was the plain green box. As I’m sure all you tres chic readers out there already know, Tiffany boxes are the palest shade of duck egg blue, tied up with a beautiful white satin ribbon. Inside there is a soft suede pouch which gently cossets your darling little purchase. There was a suede pouch alright, but it looked as though it should be storing drill bits, not fine jewellery. The bangle itself though, was absolutely lovely. It’s actually exactly the kind of thing the Teenager would adore.

So, dilemma. On the one hand, I could keep it, throw away the packaging and just give her the bangle for her birthday. On the other hand, whilst it was ludicrously cheap for Tiffany, it was a bit much to pay for Tiff O’ Nay. Surely The Teen would prefer something else for that amount of cash? Or would I – as someone suggested – try and pass it off as a real Tiffany bangle? There are fakes all over the place now. Would she really know? Er, excuse me. Of course she’d know. What sort of an upbringing do you think this girl has had?

I know that there are countless people out there who are perfectly happy with counterfeit luxury goods. They have a happy holiday touring the markets of Marrakesh before cheerfully packing up their Kelvin Klein jeans and their Mark Jakobs frocks into their Lewis Vuitton luggage before heading for home.. They stoutly maintain that it’s just as good as the real thing, and at a fraction of the price. A woman in the boozer goes as far as to take designer items that she wants copied to “a little man” she found squirreled away in some murky Marmaris back street. Her Goochie cases are loaded up with Fendy bags and Jimmy Shoo slingbacks. Her arms rattle like Mr T with her Faulex and her Lynx of London bracelets. Everyone’s doing it, right? And, if you don’t look too closely at her green wrists, who can really tell the difference?

I’ll tell you who can tell the difference. Anyone in our office who is currently sitting within a ten-seat radius of the girl who got a fake Smithson Nancee bag when she was in Morocco for half term. She swanked about the office expecting us all to coo and simper over her bag. Except we didn’t – because it’s obviously a fake – and a bad one at that. How do we all know? Is it our unerring eye for style? Is it the stitching, the playful little design details – or could it possibly be because we all reckon Sam Cam gets rid of the overpowering whiff of wet camel before she lets a bag out of the shop?