Hey Dolls,
If your social pages look anything like mine, you can't scroll for more than 60 seconds without some Tiktoker screaming DUPE or frugalista raving about the money they saved on their dupe Kelly bag. Even our fave celebs are being busted daily rocking fakes! All savings aside let's talk about the truth about dupes.
First, it's important to define dupe. A dupe is technically a designer inspired piece with no logos and very small, nuanced changes as not to infringe on a designers' trademark. A replica is a copy of an existing product intended to be perceived as the original product. This conversation is not about "inspired" pieces or true legal dupes. But over the last few years the terms have been misused and used interchangeably. So I'll be using the term most commonly used "dupe". With that being said illegal dupes are being praised as being "economically responsible" because they're made with minimal and cheaper textiles, "financially responsible" because they're cheaper, "inclusive" because the lower price gives buying power to more people and "socially responsible" because they're deemed as inclusive and non-discriminatory. The truth is that illegal dupes are none of those things. They're created by criminals and selling them is illegal. Whether yours comes from the hair store, a street corner, your stylist or some guy's trunk the truth of the matter is that it originated in a factory ran by slave labor and your money is used to fund even darker ventures. Such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, organ theft and other dupe factories. These "re-designers' duplicate everything from purses to opioids.
It's much better to purchase quality items that you can comfortably afford rather than to spend money with criminals to achieve a false sense of luxury ownership. Illegal dupes do much more harm than good. They are not a harmless purchase with no victims. It's a billion-dollar black market industry. In addition to being tacky asf buying replicas rob companies of their creativity and money. Women, men and children are trafficked to work for free in deadly environments. As fashion girlies we gotta do better. We're all for stretching a buck and not overextending ourselves but at what cost? I'd like to know dolls, are you done with illegal dupes? Or are you more of an out of sight out of mind shopper? We just discussed responsibility and sustainability in fashion and how far should we each be required to go to be responsible. But I think we can agree that is one line we don't want to cross! Join the conversation below or on Instagram @porscheporshia.
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