The Palais Maria Mirror Dress is, in many ways, nothing new. It’s a simple linen dress with a sweetheart neckline that hugs the body and billows at the bottom. But when the brand posted a TikTok of the $595 dress, it went viral with 1.4 million views.
It became more than a dress, it became an “it girl” dress.
“This is not a dress. This is THEEE dress,” commented TikTok user @Charly. “I don’t want to feel like Catherine Zeta-Jones in ‘Zoro’ in this dress,” replied @Kaira. “It would be so hard for you to get about 12 hours of the minimum wage swing price range,” wrote @addieomalley.
Every item Mirror Palais sells is sustainably made to order in New York’s garment district. Founder and designer Marcelo Gaia came up with the idea for the Maria dress when he came across spools of vintage linen wool.
“[The fabric] reminds me of my mother. It reminds me of my family in Brazil,” says Gaia. “In Brazil, it’s very hot and so these types of linen are very popular, and because they almost have a cross motif. It’s called a Broderie Anglaise and it made me think of Catholicism, which is very close to me.”
The dress took countless hours of conceptualization, working with a pattern maker, silhouette engineering and fittings on a variety of bodies. Every stitch – every detail – was thought through. For Gaia, the dress was a labor of love, a tribute to his heritage and his mother.
But then came the scams: they look like products on Amazon that loyal followers sent Gaia.
“Oh my God, [dupes] it just took my heart and soul that we poured into something,” he says. “And [they’re] completely desecrating it.”
It girl clothing is not a new concept, but its hyper-consumption has increased. Lirika Matoshi’s Strawberry midi dress and House of Sunny’s Hockney dress are prime examples of the phenomenon. Both dresses went viral on social media, and when the original high price deterred many buyers, fast fashion retailers like SHEIN stepped in to meet the high demand at a low price. This award came with the definition of unethical practices, and the same happened with the design of Gaia.
An admirer of Gaia’s work, fashion blogger and TikTok creator Shanna Battle was shocked to see Christina DeRosa’s TikTok showing off a $17 Maria dress and linking the item to her Amazon storefront for 1.1 million viewers who watched the video.
“Our desire to find a cheater for absolutely everything has gotten in our way,” Battle said in DeRosa’s TikTok video response. “My fashion sisters in Christ, not everything is meant for everyone. Sometimes it’s okay to just shop within our tax bracket.”
Battle attributes some of the hyperconsumption we see in the fashion industry to TikTok, but says that overconsumption has existed for decades. Meryl Streep, who plays Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, gives a monologue explaining the trickle-down effect of the trend cycles that have been going on since the commercialization of ready-to-wear and the birth of department stores.
But the growing cultural authority of social media and the ability to make instant, online purchases differentiate Millennial and Gen Z consumers from previous generations. Trends will always exist, but modern fast fashion stores like Zara and H&M promote 52 “micro-seasons” a year, one for each week, to create demand at a faster pace.
“If I see something, I love it. No one thinks about their purchases. They want to be able to have something that’s popular, that’s in the moment, because I want to be popular and I want to be in the moment,” Battle says. “And then when the next thing comes along, I’ll just throw away the things I’ve bought before and go buy whatever else is new.”
At the start of the video cuts, Gaia responded to Battle’s reaction to DeRosa’s spoof video: “I created this really beautiful special thing that I wanted to share with the world, and now it’s actually the source of someone’s misery. Someone is slaving away for these re-creations of my dresses and is probably being paid very unfairly and probably working in really bad conditions.”
Natalie Duarte bought the same $17 dupe from Amazon as DeRosa. When Duarte bought it, she says she didn’t know the dress was a duplicate of someone else’s design. However, she created a test video on TikTok that had more than 54,000 views. When you search for “Mirror Palais dupe” on the app, her video is one of the top results.
“I hated that my purchase was unethical and people say that I am a contributor to child slavery,” says Duarte. “At the end of the day, it was a purchase I was really happy with, and I know it was unethical, but I grew up shopping at flea markets, so I don’t feel bad about my purchase.”
Duarte understands why people were upset. She says she also didn’t know the dress she bought was made using unethical practices and, like many Americans, wonders how much impact an individual consumer can have against stores and climate change.
Of the 75 million fashion factory workers – 85% of whom are women – it is estimated that less than 2% earn a living wage. That’s only about 1.5 million.
A Princeton study found that the fashion industry alone is responsible for more carbon emissions than international flights and shipping each year. Plus, the fashion industry consumes one-tenth of all industrially used water and accounts for 20% of the world’s wastewater, which disproportionately affects communities of color.
As people begin to take climate change more seriously, Battle says it’s important to remember that “sustainability has been hijacked by capitalism,” referring to brands promoting ethical consumption as a selling point of their products and erasing sustainable practices. for decades. by communities of color.
Some fans of Gaia’s patterns have found a more ethical approach by sewing their own version of the dress or thrifting similar pieces. Environmental scientist Emilie Chaumillon’s TikTok of sewing an interpolation of the Maria dress received more than 750,000 views.
Growing up in Hawaii, Chaumillon danced the hula and the dancers made their own costumes to show appreciation for the craft and sense of storytelling. Making clothes by hand is a way of life for her and a way to reduce her carbon footprint.
“I learned [how to sew] through all the women in my family, they are all seamstresses,” says Chaumillon, “[I] I have never had less than 12 sewing machines in my house.”
For those interested in making their own clothes, she recommends several Instagram accounts to find patterns, as well as buying second-hand clothes, such as large sheets, to create less textile waste. Most importantly, she says to be patient.
“When I first started sewing I really wanted to do it. I immediately loved what I saw on Instagram,” says Chaumillon. “I wanted Prime overnight delivery with stitching. But you can’t do that. You have to take your time.”
When it comes to the cost of Mirror Palais clothes, Gaia is aware that the average consumer cannot afford the expensive price tag. Rather, he adores those who have taken inspiration from his designs and thrifted or sewn their own versions.
Its prices are a brutal reflection of the true cost of ethically made clothing – livable wages for workers, safe working conditions, quality non-toxic fabrics and thoughtful engineering. All of these come at a high price and can still be exploited by other companies in the industry. Despite all this, he is optimistic about the future.
“I think it’s important to hold everyone to a higher standard of transparency,” says Gaia. “I like what we’re doing. I think people love our clothes and the clothes you like stay in your closet forever or you sell them for a good price. You take care of the things you love and I hope that’s the future.”
