Originally Posted by spoonbender

my friend owns 2 skateboard companies(capix helmets and annex trucks) and is a wheeler and dealer. he travels to japan and taiwan to source other projects. when i was the manager at a store, we purchased a ****load of DC shoes thru him that we paid $18-$29 canadian for(i was informed that DC was paying $27 u.s. for one particular shoe that was in the batch). at the time my friend was team manager of a shoe company called "RECS" that were made in the same factory as DCSHOECO shoe's. the DC's that we bought thru my friend were not authorized shoes for sale from DC, but from my friend talking the owner/manager of the plant in taiwan to a backdoor deal.

what i'm trying to say is that, whoever bride has making their seats, they are ripping them off! since they are making them, they can make them anyway they want - with logos or without and/or with alcantara or without. they have all the materials and know how to make brides and figure they can make a quick profit from backdoor sales!!!

i honestly think it is the same seat, made by the same guys at the same factory, cutting out the middle man(who in actuality is their customer) an is selling un-authorized bride seats. i bet they took the logo off(noticed some on ebay with no logo's by same seller) so that they 1) don't lose bride's business(since bride obviously knows about the "fake" seats) or 2) they don't get sued. i also think that they used alcantara b/c bride doesn't therefore it is setting them apart(not for bragging rights factor but for reason #2). a seat with no logo and different material may not fringe on bride's copy-right, unless it isn't copy-righted.

what it all comes down to, is would you like to save some money on un-authorized seats(but the same seat non the less) or have the real thing to back up all of your other legit pieces!!!