Dupe fever continues to soar

Hype Culture, Dupe Culture, one overshadowed the other in a ruinous dance until both were swallowed up by a single, large consumerist tangle. If in recent times the theme of fashion and beauty "duplicates" had disappeared from the For You of TikTok, new research shows that the trend has never disappeared from the internet (last winter, Google even started to suggest them on its shopping pages). In the past year, Reddit has recorded a 50% increase in traffic on threads focused on the dupe topic, such as r/fashionreps and r/designerreps. Apart from the sustainability issue related to excessive consumption, the trend highlights an interesting phenomenon regarding luxury and its desirability: consumers are increasingly attracted to status symbols such as accessories and expensive items but, in the face of ever-increasing prices, settle for imitations. It's no coincidence that the base clientele of dupes is Gen Z, a generation that has to deal with increasingly high living costs but also wants to buy new fashions, a community that loves sustainability but still can't afford it. In this, TikTok has been a lethal weapon, capable of seducing the audience first with new trends, aesthetics, and brands to follow, then with the "dupes" for anyone who wanted to protect their savings.

One of the main factors that has made fakes acceptable among the younger consumer segment seems to be the very definition of the word "dupe." With the introduction of new slang instead of "counterfeit" or "imitation," the term has firmly entered Gen Z's vocabulary, thus gaining access to their world completely openly. Consumers are aware that they are buying a counterfeit item, but do not find it wrong: as reported by The Fashion Law, among young people, "dupes" are sometimes even preferred to original items, legal or not. The elimination of stigma has given rise to a real pool of experts on social media, influencers who capitalize on the trend by sharing with their followers where to find the best imitations, from lip glosses (which are a thorny issue in the beauty community) to designer bags.

While the impact of TikTok on the rise of dupes in fashion is evident, with the hashtag #dupe gathering over 240,000 posts on the platform, only now is the role that e-commerce is also having in this dynamic becoming known. The increase in demand for imitations by consumers has made the dupe market a fertile ground for companies, and thus both in the beauty and fashion worlds, cheaper brands have upped the ante, increasing the supply of "look-alike" items and advertising them as such (obviously in a veiled manner). If it's true that in times of economic crisis consumers begin to warm up to the idea of buying fakes, as was the case in the early 2000s, it must also be said that dupes represent a substantial paradox in the Gen Z universe, torn between the desire to save the planet and the desire to look fashionable 24/7.