There was a fashion show on Tuesday in a church in New York. The New York Fashion Week debut of the brand Mirror Palais was thanks to the determination of its founder. It is the latest target of dupe culture, and it is popular on a different stage.
They are taking over the online fashion world by using the term dupes. The impact of social media on fast- fashion brands has changed how younger generations think about clothing consumption. In the past, these brands used designer runway shows and critical responses to inspire the clothes in low cost stores and budget collections. Remember when Miranda Priestly broke that down? Even when fast fashion began to pick up steam at the start of the 2000s, it took brands like Zara several weeks for affordable versions of the runway looks to be available for a mainstream, ready-to-wear market. Fast fashion brands have a lot of trends ready to go before models leave the runway.
People who follow multiple creators in the online fashion community get more engagement when they are constantly working to dress in new and popular styles. This contributes to an ever-accelerating trend cycle, where clothes that were needed four weeks ago could become useless. Fast fashion brands like Shein, H&M, and Asos, who already redefined fashion in the e-commerce space, are now able to make dupes while clothes are still popular, which is a direct link between influencer-based marketing and the acceleration of mass clothing production.
One of the most well-known fast fashion companies, the Chinese brand Shein, has exploded in popularity due to its presence on TikTok and IG. The post featuring #sheinhauls, where creators buy massive pallets of clothes and try them on for their followers, rakes in thousands of views and comments. Shein is now the third most powerful startup in the world and is worth close to $100 billion, ten years after its $5 million valuation. Despite constant criticism for the company’s negative impact on the environment and allegations of worker exploitation, Shein received $16 billion in sales in the year 2020.
Cottagecore or independent sleaze are seasonal trends that are often defined by heavily identifiable articles of clothing, such as the Lirika Matoshi Strawberry dress, House of Sunny green Hockney Midi, or this season’s Birkenstock Bostons. The most popular dupes are those that recreate a product as closely as possible for a fraction of the price. It is a carbon copy. Amazon gives creators a small percentage of sales when people purchase items with their links, so they have an incentive to post and promote popular dupes.
As a designer with a brand that was popular by its young and internet-forward aesthetic, Gaia is no stranger to virality. The Mirror Palais Fairy dress was a TikTok staple for a long time. Gaia tells Rolling Stone that she doesn’t know how many copies of the dress there were. Gaia’s brand was made to go viral with the help of some popular people. The Maria is wearing a dress.
The Maria is made of 100 percent wool and decorated with flower-shaped cutouts that remind him of classic Brazilian cinema and timeless pieces his mother and grandmother kept in their home. Gaia says the final product is an authentic expression of his heritage and craft. Sometimes you’re like “This is just for me.”
With its innate wearability, designer look, and meaningful connection to real life, the dress immediately became a summer 2020 must-have, but gave many sticker shock with its $625 price tag. One influencer bragged that she had found a $17 dupe of the dress on Amazon in a video that got 1.2 million views and 20,000 saves, as top comments read “Amazon storefronts are the real plague of our generation” and “we’re not meant to have everything babes.” The unboxing of the dress received almost 90 thousand views and hundreds of comments with people saying they were inspired to buy their own dupes.
The younger generation is sensitive and kind, which makes the widespread support of knockoffs, especially the way it exploits underpaid workers at the bottom of fast fashion companies, shocking to him.
Gaia tells Rolling Stone that she is a bit desensitized to the popularity of dupes. It makes me upset when I see young people promoting the product. The dupes promote a really like kind of toxic culture for easy and fast consumption.
A designer who runs a sustainable and size-inclusive clothing brand in New York says she has had at least one of her designs stolen by an online retailer. She keeps working because of the theft and others like it.
Serna tells Rolling Stone that it affects her. I’m not happy about it. I always think I can do more. It is almost like you know you have made it big when people don’t like your designs. I think that I will make another one.
Large websites are often the only places for plus-sized people to find clothes that fit, as this brings another level to the fast fashion debate. Serna doesn’t judge if a person says they can only find their size at Shein but is encouraged to return.
Serna doesn’t feel like she’s deserving of a lot of praise for extending her sizes. I think every brand should carry a certain size. It is not a new thing to do that.
The battle of accessibility vs accountability is one of the arguments around fast fashion. Some supporters of dupe culture think it is classist to assume people can afford designer clothes or always shop ethically, while others think it is a waste of money. The same argument came up again during fashion week after several people wore fast-fashion outfits. New York Fashion Week themed events were held by major brands and fast fashion marketplaces.
The accessibility argument ignores how much influence has changed and accelerated the harm of fast fashion, according to author and sustainable fashion expert Aja Barber.
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 poorly treated garment workers. The fashion industry lays the excess of unpopular clothes on the global south due to the ever-increasing trend cycle. The root of the issue is overconsumption, according to Barber.
The fashion industry is pumping out enough clothing to clothe the human population 12 times over and the truth of the matter is, you have to be privileged to buy into the system where having trendy clothes is treated like a necessity. There is a lot of bad faith in this conversation. I think it’s time for people to be honest with themselves about how they’re contributing to the problem.
Gaia supports a version of dupes that take inspiration from designs without stealing. He loves fans who send him inspired outfits they sewed together or thrifted, calling it a better way to participate in fashion. Gaia encourages those who think purchasing power is the only way to achieve fashion notoriety to think about where their garments come from and the real human costs of staying on trend.
Gaia told Rolling Stone that everyone should be able to enjoy fashion and express themselves how they want. I don’t think exploiting people who aren’t as fortunate is the solution. I always looked cool because I filled up a closet when I was a child.