Dupes evolved

While copying is nothing new, dupe culture – the concept of replicating the look and effect of high-end products at a cheaper price – is thriving. According to a YouGov and Business Insider survey published in May in Emarketer, 71% of Gen Z say they sometimes or always buy cheaper versions of name-brand products. And the Guardian in May reported that almost one-third of US adults said they intentionally bought a dupe of a premium or luxury product, with at least 11% of UK consumers buying one dupe product at least once every few months.

Largely popularized by influencers on social media, fashion and beauty dupes are becoming more than direct copies of more expensive products and are veering into more subtle territory.

For instance, while E.l.f Beauty doesn’t directly position its affordable cosmetics as dupes, this best-selling brand – whose sales surpassed US $1 billion in the year to March 2024 – is a perennial feature in influencers’ rosters of top dupes. Its Halo Glow Contour Beauty Wand is compared to Charlotte Tilbury’s Hollywood Contour Wand, while its Glow Reviver Lip Oil is considered a dupe for Dior’s Lip Glow Oil. Added to this, Korea’s innovative K beauty brands are frequently called out as convincing dupes for high-end Western skin care.

Meanwhile, Dossier, a US brand that describes itself as “French perfumes without the pretense,” creates fragrances inspired by haute originals, such as Floral Marshmallow, inspired by Killian’s Love Don’t Be Shy, and Powdery Coconut, inspired by Tom Ford’s Soleil Blanc. The brand emphasizes that it does away with the “celebrity endorsement fees [and] pricey packaging” that contribute to prestige fragrance brands’ aspirational aura and high prices. Its scents are crafted in Grasse, France, the brand notes, and in 2023, it launched its own compositions, Dossier Originals.

WEB Dossier New York Pop Up — Dossier pop-up store in New York City

Yet while such products are presented as democratizing consumers’ choices, dupes do have a cost for those being imitated, underlines Anousha Davies, trade mark attorney at London law firm Birketts. Davies tells VML Intelligence while dupes “sail very close to the wind when it comes to imitation,” they are distinct from counterfeits, defined as “copies that use another owner’s branding or design without authorization, and are often lower quality goods, for example, counterfeit Chanel bags using the CC logo.”

However, dupes can, Davies says, still “pose a real threat to a business with consumers being diverted to purchase the cheaper versions and ultimately detracting sales from the original brand owner,” adding that “taking some form of action may be necessary to avoid a long-term impact on a brand owner’s business.”

Davies notes that “there is a fine line between taking inspiration and infringing on another owner’s IP….most [luxury brand owners] will have a legal team advising them on whether legal action is in fact necessary. In some instances, legal action might not be the best option. Some brands have ultimately collaborated instead of taking the matter through the courts.”

Olaplex Bottles — Olaplex dupes the dupers on TikTok with Oladupé. Image courtesy of Olaplex

Indeed, Olaplex in 2023 took a playful approach to the conversation around dupes when it created a spoof dupe of a product in its range, dubbed Oladupé, which the brand seeded to influencers. It was then later revealed that the Oladupé product was in fact the brand’s No. 3 Hair Protector, highlighting that thanks to the brand’s 160 patents, it’s what Olaplex’s then-ceo JuE Wong described as “undupable.” And in the case of Lululemon’s Align Leggings and filtered water showerhead brand Jolie, both brands created activations in which consumers could swap imitations of their products for the originals.

And as for fragrance duping, Allure reported in 2023 that while fragrance formulas aren’t “protected by copyright,” flavors and fragrance company Symrise has created a technology – Cryptosym – that “encrypts” fragrance formulas, so that they can’t be easily replicated using gas chromatography analysis to reveal the formula’s exact chemical composition.

Yet against these efforts from brands, the meaning of “dupe” is evolving and broadening, with the term’s viral status leading it to be used to describe new categories, such as less expensive alternatives to popular travel destinations, as the BBC reported in March. Among the swaps? “Liverpool for London. Paros for Santorini. Curaçao for St Martin.” The article cited Expedia’s The Trends in Travel report, in which Melanie Fish, chief trend tracker for Expedia Brands, described travel dupes as “destinations that are a little unexpected, sometimes more affordable, but every bit as delightful as the tried-and-true places travelers love.”

Via this interpretation – and increasingly across other categories – dupes are becoming less about copying and instead, for some consumers, serve as a way to signify that they are savvy enough to garner the best deal or experience.

Main image: Courtesy of Elf Cosmetics