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Tuesday morning, at an LGBTQ-affirming Episcopal church in Greenwich Village, like most places in New York this week, there was a fashion show. The Mirror Palais brand made its debut at New York Fashion Week, largely thanks to the unwavering determination of its founder Marcelo Gaia. But on another scene – TikTok – Gaia’s work isn’t just popular: it’s the latest target of scam culture.
Dupes, short for duplicates, is the gen-z term for “knockoff” clothes — and they’re taking the fashion world by storm online. While the very nature of fashion has often involved reinventing familiar themes or motifs, the influence of social media on fast fashion brands has completely changed the way new generations think about clothing consumption. In previous decades, these brands often targeted big fashion houses like Chanel, Prada and Coach, using designer shows and critical feedback to eventually inspire clothes in off-price stores and budget collections. (Remember when Miranda Priestly helpfully destroyed it?) Even as fast fashion took off in the early 2000s, it took weeks for brands like Zara to make affordable iterations of runway looks available for a release. ordinary, ready-to-market clothing. Now, fast fashion brands have stocks of potential trends ready to go before the models leave the runway.
Because people active in the online fashion community often follow multiple creators, influencers get more engagement when they’re constantly working to wear new and popular styles. This contributes to an ever-accelerating trend cycle, where clothes that were necessary four weeks ago may become inappropriate today. Fast fashion brands like Shein, H&M and Asos, which already redefined fashion in the e-commerce space, are now able to distribute dupes while the clothes are still popular – marking a direct link between influencer-based marketing and accelerating mass wear. production.
One of the most popular fast fashion companies, Chinese brand Shein, has exploded in popularity due to its presence on TikTok and Instagram. Posting #sheinhauls — where creators buy massive pallets of clothes and try them on for followers — garners thousands of views and video comments. Just 10 years from its $5 million valuation, Shein is now the third most powerful startup in the world and is worth close to $100 billion, according to Bloomberg. In 2021 alone, Shein took in $16 billion in sales, apparently despite ongoing criticism of the company’s negative impact on the environment and allegations of worker exploitation.
Seasonal trends on TikTok and Instagram, like cottagecore or indie sleaze, are often defined by highly identifiable clothing items: think the Lirika Matoshi Strawberry dress, the House of Sunny green Hockney midi, or this season’s Birkenstock Bostons. When a particular brand or item goes viral, rather than a style, the most popular scams are those that recreate a product as closely as possible for a fraction of the price. It’s no longer inspiration, it’s a carbon copy. And influencers have an incentive to post and promote popular scams: through Amazon’s influencer program, creators get a small percentage of sales when people buy items with their links.
As a designer whose brand became known for its fresh and viral aesthetic, Gaia is no stranger to virality. In 2021, his Mirror Palais Fairy dress was a TikTok staple for months, generating dozens of free retweets. “I’ve lost count of the number of hits she had with that dress,” says Gaia Rolling Stone. With celebrity endorsers such as Bella Hadid and Dua Lipa, Gaia’s brand went viral. Next up was the Maria in Leite midi dress.
Made of 100 percent wool and decorated with floral cutouts, Gaia says he designed Maria after finding scrap fabric at a vintage supplier that reminded him of classic Brazilian cinema and the timeless pieces his mother and grandmother they kept his in their house. Gaia calls the final product an “authentic expression” of his heritage and craft. “Sometimes when you’re a designer, you’re like, ‘Well, this is for the client,'” Gaia says. Rolling Stone. “And then sometimes you’re like, ‘This is just for me.'”
With its innate fit, designer look, and meaningful real-life connection, the dress instantly became a summer 2020 must-have, but shocked many stickers with its $625 price tag; shenanigans soon followed. One influencer boasted about finding a $17 dress on Amazon in a video that received 1.2 million views and 20,000 saves, while top comments read “Amazon storefronts are the real plague of our generation” and “we’re not meant to be” . to have everything baby.” Even with the backlash, the unboxing of the dress received almost 90k views and hundreds of comments with people saying they were inspired to order their dupes.
Gaia said he considers the younger generation particularly sensitive and kind, which makes the widespread support of knockoffs surprising to him, especially the way it exploits the underpaid workers at the bottom of fast fashion companies.
“I’m a little desensitized at this point,” Gaia says Rolling Stone when asked about the dupe’s popularity. “Of course I’m still upset, but more than that, I’m upset when I see young people promoting scammers. We as a society are so used to easy and quick consumption… and scammers just promote a really similar kind of toxic culture to that.”
Designer Wray Serna, who runs Wray, a sustainable and inclusive clothing brand in New York, says she’s already had at least one of her designs stolen from an online retailer in 2019. But theft and more like her, they only push her to keep working.
“To be completely honest, it definitely affects me sometimes,” says Serna Rolling Stone. “I am frustrated by this. But I always think I can design more things. And in a way, it’s almost like you know you’ve made it big when people are tearing down your plans. I just think, ‘I’ll do another one’ and move on.”
Serna adds that size inclusivity brings another level to the fast fashion debate, as major websites are often the only places for plus-size people to find clothes that fit. When customers approach her about her price points, Serna says she never judges if a person says they can only find their size at places like Shein, but is encouraged when people choose to return.
“We get a lot of praise for expanding our sizes, which to be honest with you, I don’t feel like we really deserve,” says Serna. “I think every brand should have every size. It’s not revolutionary to do that.”
Many of the arguments about fast fashion scams also center on the battle of accessibility versus accountability. Some supporters of dupe culture claim it’s classist to assume people can afford designer clothes or always shop ethically, while dupe haters focus on sustainability concerns in the fashion community. The same argument played out again during fashion week as several influencers wore fast fashion to the show. Big brands and fast-fashion marketplaces like Revolve and Amazon even held New York Fashion Week-themed events.
While sustainable or small designer brands like Gaia and Serna’s are more expensive than average clothing options, the accessibility argument ignores how much influence has changed and accelerated the damage of fast fashion, according to author and sustainable fashion expert . Come on barber.
Barber notes that small designers in the fashion world are often priced out of competition when their designs are stolen, and popular trends often come at the expense of underpaid or poorly treated garment workers. The ever-increasing trend cycle also means that the fashion industry, which already overproduces, places its overabundance of unpopular clothes directly in the global south. According to Barber, confusing criticism of fast-fashion replicas with classism simply ignores the root of the issue: overconsumption.
“The fashion industry is producing enough clothing to clothe the human population 12 times over and the truth of the matter is that you have to be somewhat privileged to buy into the system where having fashionable clothing is treated as a necessity,” says Barber. . “There are a lot of bad faith players in this conversation. Poor people didn’t create this mess… and I think it’s time for people to be really honest with themselves about how they’re contributing to this problem.”
While dupe culture is largely rooted in how gen-z and social media fashionistas shop for clothes, Gaia says he supports a version of dupes that takes inspiration from designs without outright stealing. He especially loves fans who send him inspired outfits they’ve put together or made, calling it “a better and healthier way to participate in fashion.” For those who think purchasing power is the only way to achieve fashion fame, Gaia also encourages crafty supporters to think about where their clothes come from and the real human costs of always staying on trend.
“I absolutely agree wholeheartedly that everyone should be able to enjoy fashion and express themselves however they want,” says Gaia. Rolling Stone. “But I don’t think exploiting people who are even less fortunate than you is the answer. And as someone who grew up with no disposable income, I filled a closet and always looked good.”
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