Dupes, also known as duplicates or knockoffs, are remakes of popular products, heavily reduced in quality to cater to a wider audience. They are both easy to criticise and easy to purchase; the allure of a new trend at a low price point versus the disrespect towards a brand name. However, the reality between makeup dupes and fashion dupes are quite starkly different, with varying artistic integrity and types of ingredients or materials.
The reason why making dupes is possible is down to copyright systems and the logistical nightmare of patenting ideas and products. Not only does the process of patenting one item take around one to five years, the cost can reach into the thousands if copyright attorneys are employed. Time and money are unavoidable factors; businesses cannot stop the making of dupes before the patent is officially in place, and smaller businesses certainly do not have the budget to keep every product safe. Uncopyrighted ideas and products are subject to fair use, and can therefore be replicated by manufacturers specialising in dupes with no repercussions.
Taking a further look into why people buy into dupe culture, they can be reasonable access points into new styles normally unattainable for the average buyer. This saves money whilst encouraging expression and creativity in fashion, but the infringement on artistic integrity, especially from independent creatives, outweighs the positives.
In fashion, people can experiment instead through second-hand buying to try new or elusive styles. Stolen ideas made by fast fashion giants like Shein use poor materials that harm the planet and the lives of the textile workers in the global south. Thrifting and charity-shopping do not contribute to the same cycle of waste.
Dupe culture has simply promoted overconsumption with the ease of buying a trend for a cheaper price tag. Knockoffs should not be bought at the expense of small fashion designers, who have no voice against fast fashion giants who get away with copying clothes so easily.
However, dupe culture is not exactly the same in the makeup world. Small fashion designers who make clothes are not so comparable to the chemists and developers who create makeup products in a lab. Whilst all makeup brands have creative direction, the possibility of innovation and imagination lies with their users, because makeup products are relatively standardised. The same cannot be said for fashion designers, who have the key creative role in their industry.
Furthermore, luxury and drugstore makeup contrast largely in their marketing towards varied customer bases, rather than the actual quality of the products. The differences in ingredients are minimal, and are more apparent in expensive packaging and brand image. Therefore, the environmental and human rights damages are not proportionate to the fast fashion companies stealing from small designers. Instead, drugstore makeup dupes focus on differentiating the market sector by having less luxurious exteriors.
Additionally, dupes in makeup usually travel top-down: from a large luxury brand to a cheap brand – unlike in fashion, where it travels from a small designer to a fast fashion giant. The artistic infringement in makeup is still there, but it is less parasitic when the high-end brand has more agency, resources, and legal power than a small designer completely bound to the logistical nightmare of patenting.
All in all, avoid dupes when you can. This can be a daunting task in our consumerist culture; there are so many products constantly being sold to us that it’s impossible to know the origins of each and every item, and whether they capitalise off of artistic plagiarism or not. But makeup is a safer bet, where dupes intend to separate the market sector rather than mislead with a pretence of innovation. Many makeup dupes are self-aware and use that to their advantage, whereas fashion dupes attempt to pass off independent designs as their own, existing in the cruel world of exploitation of small artists, textile labourers, and natural resources.
