An antilujo affliction travels. To the spell of “Haul de Hacoo!”, The audience consumes video after video of poorly packed packages – they come very far, they are intuited – that contain magic: what was once expensive and inaccessible replicated in a cheaper and more dignified version. HICOO is a platform where to get out of almost anything high -end: some sneakers, a bag, sunglasses … it works with codes; If you named a brand, the search engine does not know does not answer. When someone receives their order, the video to Tiktok shows each piece of the loot (haul in English) with price, label, comments on the packaging – “Take the hit” – and details about zippers and closures. This radiography of fake Rowing to an audience that, overnight, can turn into celebrity To whom he discovers dupe perfect.
. Dupe —Dupplicated, in English – it sounds more ambiguous and indulgent. No one feels that he is doing something wrong, after all, in 2025 everything has a double circulating online. For example, the island of Santorini. Who cannot allow it can travel to Astipalea, another Aegean island. A dupe It is usually a sign of the distinction and relevance that the original has reached. Almost a tribute. But anything does not deserve that category, although on the one hand the concept seems simple: the cheapest version of an aspirational product, a dupe It is much more. Not only does it have to look like the original and be more accessible, of a dupe much more is expected. It must be perceived as an adequate substitute for the object of desire. That is, give almost the same benefits. “For people to work, they have to feel that they have discovered a secret key, experimenting a feeling of belonging to the finding and believing that a right is exercising. Behind this phenomenon is crucial the feeling of justice: we all deserve the same and assists us the right to seek an alternative within the reach of our pocket,” he explains in a podcast mia sato, journalist of the technological publication The Verge.
Such emotional alibi implies that it is not so simple to judge the dupes because the border between good and evil is diluted and political, social, ethical and legal ideas are mixed in a bite of arguments that lead, as usual on the Internet, in a trial and, also, to its opposite. It is, as Sato defines, “a legal issue filtered through a moral lens.”
The philosophy of Dupe.com, a startup that dives on the web to find alternatives to luxury products is clear: a dupe It is “a noble way to fight greedy companies.” That speech has penetrated in an entire generation that every time you buy a fake He believes he executes an act of rebellion. “There is a deep cultural change; the youngest demystify the traditional luxury notion, among other things for their drift towards profitability at all costs and the unjustified increase in prices,” says Daniel Figuero, a fragrance expert and author of Contraperfume (Editorial Superflua, 2021). A 2023 report by the Tpulse consultancy explored the acceptance of the phenomenon with a question: even if you could afford the original, would you still continue buying the dupe? More than 60% of Americans between 13 and 39 years responded yes, and in the United Kingdom he did more than half of respondents.
Los influencers that build their identity revealing dupes In Tiktok they feel Robin Hood. “The one who previously bought and tried to strain it as good now that having found a clone that works as well as the original. The luxury no longer gives them status, instead carrying a copy positions them on the side of the rebellion, ”says Víctor Ant, Public Relations and Perfume collector.“ The search for dupes It encourages the creation of a community where users share information and impressions. This dynamic is more attractive than buying a luxury fragrance whose objective, by definition, is to reach the elite, ”Figuero brings.“ Luxury was a totem and now it is increasingly devalued, it is perceived as something that has lost quality because it is known that many brands manufacture their products in Asia and end in France made in France. It is a legal practice that seems aberrant and, of course, it ceases to be an artisanal object that my children can inherit; We see luxury as an industry that is giving it to us with cheese and we are going to return it, ”says Ant. He has not helped the recent scandal of Lor has even installed the belief that dupes They are manufactured in the same manufacturing as the originals. And this applies to a bag and for a lipstick.
One of the peculiarities of the phenomenon is that for the first time large companies have settled in the car without any modesty. In Spain, Mercadona, Aldi or Zara have turned into a business model the sale of “inspired” products in other aspirational and, although the average buyer does not immediately identify the reference, their ignorance will last little, just what is late to start the powerful machinery of digital marketing. The best informed will be headed to dupethey will record a video and will tell, to put a case, that Red Temptation, from Zara (15 euros), suspiciously remembers Baccarat Rouge 540, by Francis Kurkdjian (245 euros), and, as in social networks it grows by repetition, an already published content will generate almost accurate replicas with identical format, framed, tone and decline of voice. Half an hour of scroll Enough to verify that we live in an infinite duplicate of speakers telling the same. In that context, dupes Almost everything, want you or not, will end up finding it in any Internet corner.
It may be that dupe Universal and more stunned Walmart, the American supermarket chain, when in 2024 he launched a leather bag at 80 dollars almost identical to the mythical Birkin de Hermès (12,000 euros, with waiting list). Although officially his name was Platinum Lychee, the Internet renamed him as Wirkin for the W of Walmart. He is so scarce and difficult to get a symbol of status even among the very rich and, well, Walmart is just the antithesis of exclusivity. The networks exploded, rained reviews, comments and festive videos in Tiktok, but when the storm passed and numbers were made that in 2024 Hermès’s benefits had increased by 15%. The French house applied to the episode all the distance conferred by its status. However, other brands have decided to take advantage of the narrative of the dupe. If you can’t with your enemy, join him.
after verifying that the Internet was flooded with copies of its legging Estrella, offered everyone who took the Dupe to his Los Angeles store changed it to the original. Olaplex, a very Dupeelaunched a product on social networks as if it were a fakeOladupé called it and hired several influencers to promote it. The surprise was that the purchase link led to the original product. The defenders of this phenomenon believe that it is the best thing that the “harmed” brands can do because, they argue, they benefit from the halo effect and end up being perceived as modern and aspirational thanks to having been the target of a dupe.
A 2023 Nielsen consultancy survey revealed that 98% of buyers of products from skincare had expanded his beauty routine thanks to the dupesand that both copies and the original had grown at an year -on -year rate of 42% and 54%, respectively. In the era of recommendation algorithms that reward repetition and penalize originality, there is only room to be dupe o To be dupe. And we can’t even choose.
