I "Dupes" (imitations, low-cost copies of accessories, objects and garments whose design otherwise comes from major brands and fashion houses) are certainly not new. If in the past, however, wearing dupes was a habit all in all limited to a small number of consumers, today the globalization and the continuous upload of new applications, e-commerce platforms and online retailers have guaranteed a real spread of an extremely toxic phenomenon for thetechnology,saving and the very well-being of thousands of people.
The dupes craze today starts from TikTok, an extremely popular Chinese social network among the younger generations, which has made a lifestyle of counterfeit garments. On this platform we can distinguish three main types of imitations: some of the products offered by brands of fast fashion, as in the case of moccasins with a H&M that resemble those of Gucci or Prada, imitations of cheaper fashion brands with fluctuating quality, and real fakes, purchased on platforms such as AliExpress, Shein, DHgate.com and Cider.
The damages of this unstoppable assembly line are many: starting from the environment (the textile industry is the most harmful from the point of view of sustainability), up to the waist of thousands of underpaid workers, exploited and forced to work in more than precarious, if not inhumane, conditions; a continuous demand on a world level implies, in fact, an equally constant manpower, as well as a considerable quantity of material; materials, then, of the lowest quality, produced as quickly as possible and sold at insignificant prices.
At the same time the circulation of these dupes and these fast, ubiquitous and cheap alternatives also implies one deep swing in prices of authentic garments and therefore of luxury. The mechanism thus becomes lethal and clear, and perfectly delineates aluxury industry increasingly unattainable and expensive, as opposed to a reality accessible from a simple smartphone, which promises just as much quality.
Could not find the trigger, the matrix of this actual war between the poor: poor are the consumers, the young people who desire a lifestyle of beauty and aesthetic satisfaction and who are overwhelmed by images of wealth, abundance, excess, and even poorer are those forced to produce, produce and produce.
