A previous celebrity stylist and renowned ‘It’ girl from the 2000s is now faced with accusations of selling a counterfeit designer handbag valued at $60,000 to a client in Sydney merely months before being apprehended for alleged prescription forgery.
Kelly Smythe, aged 47, has transitioned to working as a luxury fashion sourcer, locating in-demand items from prestigious designer brands for affluent clients, following the decline of her freelance styling career.
In the previous year, this New Zealand-born single mother assured a wealthy client from Sydney’s affluent lower north shore that she would procure an extremely rare Hermès Kelly bag, a luxury piece that can fetch prices as high as $100,000.
The client paid Smythe – who lives on Australia’s most expensive street in Point Piper – $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, who asked not to be identified, 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 for more than a year, but has only been given a string of excuses in return.
At the height of her career, Kelly Smythe (above) was a Seven Network stylist and the go-to fashion adviser to Sydney’s elite, styling Jennifer Hawkins, Jodi Gordon and Sonia Kruger
The former stylist Smythe has been accused of selling a counterfeit handbag
‘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.
It comes as a growing number of counterfeit products are now flooding the market online, 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. They will not provide authentication certificates for items purchased elsewhere.
Smythe 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 deem 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.’
Kelly insisted the woman send the bag to get authenticated in Paris in order to get her $60,000 back
The woman has now launched legal action against Smythe to get her cash back but she wants to sound the alarm to stop others suffering the same fate she did.
‘It’s not the money, it’s the principle. I don’t want her to do this to anyone else.’
Last month Smythe spent the night in custody before appearing before Downing Centre Local Court via video link after she was arrested for allegedly forging prescriptions.
She was 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.
A charge sheet showed Ms 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 lodged a release application on his client’s behalf.
‘She knows she needs to stay on the straight and narrow,’ he told the court.
The ultra-rare Hermès Kelly bag in question can cost up to $100,000, if you can even find one
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.
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 with 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.
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)
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.
