A one-time society ‘It girl’ turned luxury fashion maven has been accused of selling a fake ultra-rare handbag to a client and then offering up a series of excuses when it was revealed to be a counterfeit. 

Kelly Smythe, 47 – a former TV stylist who once dressed household names – sources luxury fashion for a living, hunting down designer pieces for wealthy buyers. 

Last year, the New Zealand-born mother-of-one promised a rich client on Sydney’s lower north shore that she would find an ultra-rare Hermès Kelly bag that can cost up to $100,000. 

The client paid Smythe some $60,000 to source the exclusive status symbol, only to receive what she believes was a cheap fake.

‘The bag she delivered is not an authentic Hermès bag,’ the buyer told Daily Mail Australia. 

‘It might have been a “good fake” – but I forked out all the money in good faith that she would deliver the real thing.

‘Even the packaging and the receipt were terrible fakes – one was covered in white-out.’

The disappointed buyer has made repeated attempts to get her money back from Smythe for more than a year.

The former stylist Smythe has been accused of selling a counterfeit handbag

The alleged counterfeit bag in question

‘She kept finding new reasons for the authenticity of the bag, but none of it made sense and it was all just to stall me from pursuing things legally,’ she added.

With a growing number of counterfeit products flooding the market, often carrying convincing fake certificates of authenticity, Hermès will now only guarantee official authenticity of their bags if they are actually purchased directly from a Hermès store. 

The designer fashion house will not provide authentication certificates for items purchased elsewhere.

Smythe, who lives in Australia’s most expensive suburb, Point Piper, told her buyer that she would need to send the bag to Hermès for them to inspect it at their headquarters in Paris.

But she warned that the fashion house will destroy the bag if they deemed it a fake in order to permanently take it out of circulation.

In text messages seen by Daily Mail Australia, Smythe urges the woman to send the bag abroad to have it certified.

‘I insist you allow them to send it to Paris as the store [in Australia] is not allowed to authenticate it,’ she said. 

‘Paris will burn it if it isn’t real, then we can ask for your money back.’

 

The woman has now launched legal action against Smythe to get her cash back but  wants to sound the alarm to stop others suffering the same fate she did.

‘It’s not the money, it’s the principle,’ the buyer said. ‘I don’t want her to do this to anyone else.’

Last month Smythe spent the night in custody after she was arrested for allegedly forging prescriptions. 

She fronted Downing Centre Local Court via video-link, charged with two counts of using a false document to obtain property and two counts of obtaining or attempting to get a prohibited drug by false representation.

Court documents showed Smythe allegedly used a false letter and two fraudulent scripts to get dexamphetamine and lisdexamfetamine from the Paddington Compounding Pharmacy on Oxford Street on February 21 and May 15.

Dexamphetamine medication is used in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy (sleep disorder), while Lisdexamfetamine treats moderate-to-severe binge eating disorder in adults.

Smythe’s barrister Charles Alexander sought for Smythe to be released from custody.’She knows she needs to stay on the straight and narrow,’ he told the court.

Magistrate Sharon Freund said the police facts indicated there may be further charges pending, but no fresh charges had been laid.

The magistrate granted bail but added: ‘I suspect your client may have an issue with the drugs she has been self-prescribing.’

Smythe, who wore gold-rimmed sunglasses during her video-linked court appearance, said: ‘Thank you so much, ma’am.’

The case will be back before the court next month.

 Kelly Smythe was a regular on the social scene 20 years ago (she is pictured in the Myer marquee in 2006 with actor Alex Dimitriades)

At the height of her career Smythe was a Seven Network stylist and the go-to fashion adviser to Sydney’s elite, styling Miranda Kerr, Jennifer Hawkins, Jodi Gordon and Sonia Kruger.

But after five years at the helm of the wardrobe styling department, Seven cut ties with her.

With the local fashion industry teetering on the brink of collapse, Smythe struggled to make a coin doing freelance work and former friends say she vanished from the limelight.

She tied the knot in 2011 with Alex Nikolaidis, 10 years younger than her, at St Mark’s Church in the ritzy eastern suburbs enclave of Darling Point in front of clients and Sydney’s society set including Roxy Jacenko, Holly Brisley and Chris Bath.

The couple welcomed a son, now 14, a year before saying ‘I do’.

They are now divorced.

Last month the petite former stylist was seen stranded on New South Head Road in Sydney’s east after her car ran out of fuel and required NRMA roadside assistance.

She was dressed in low-rise jeans, furry flats and designer sunglasses.