Alice Sherwood: the fashion for authenticity in a world of fakes

Knock-offs are big business, worth $600 billion a year on the world market: anything from whiskey and bags to footwear and hair care products. In her book Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture Alice Sherwood argues authenticity, the genuine article, is fashionable because it is rare: the market is flooded with counterfeits. Alice Sherwood is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Policy Institute at King's College London.