Worker: Boutique sold fake designer bags as the real thing

An ex-employee says Tisha Collette (left) would sell fake designer handbags as if they were real ones; like the fake Birkin bag doctor Tara Allmen unknowingly bought (right).

A Hamptons boutique owner routinely bought fake designer bags, slapped them with luxury labels, mixed them with the real things and peddled them as originals, her former assistant claims.
Collette Consignment owner Tisha Collette “would bring in counterfeit handbags from locations in Queens, unpack them, remove the plastic wrapping, hang tags and paper stuffing, then tag the items as Hermès, Chanel, Louis Vuitton luxury handbags for sale,” the ex-employee, Cathy Silverstein, says in a scathing new Manhattan court affidavit.
“It was a common practice to mix and sell counterfeit handbags with authentic handbags and other luxury items to customers,” Silverstein added.
The statement was submitted as part of a prominent Manhattan doctor’s lawsuit against Collette, claiming that the shop owner duped her into buying a fake secondhand Birkin bag.
Tara Allmen, a gynecologist who frequently appears on TV programs such as “The Dr. Oz Show,” charges in her suit that Collette is a fraud.
Allmen said she was humiliated to discover that the supposed secondhand Birkin bag she bought from Collette for $3,425 was worth a mere $75 when she took it to the Hermès store on Madison Avenue for a cleaning. The bags sell for $20,000 new.

The fake Birkin back that Tara Allmen bought from Collette Consignment.

Collette’s lawyer, Patricia Weiss, responds in court papers that Silverstein’s “opinion of defendant’s business practices is irrelevant because her affidavit contains nothing about the purchase transaction of the single item in this lawsuit.”
Weiss notes that Allmen’s store receipt from the Southampton store in September 2005 describes the purchase with only one word—“orange”—and does not specify the designer or that it was even a handbag.
“Therefore, plaintiff has no testimonial evidence to support her allegations in her claim for fraud,” Weiss says.
Allmen, who says she has spent $40,000 at Collette’s stores between 2005 and 2013, countered in an interview, “Tisha Collette can lie all she wants. I will prevail.”