Dupes And Brand Protection

1. The phenomenon

The term “dupe” (short for “duplicate”) refers to products that deliberately reproduce the aesthetic features of luxury or highly renowned products – including handbags, footwear, fragrances, cosmetics and furniture – without reproducing their word or figurative trade marks. Unlike traditional counterfeiting, a dupe does not mislead consumers as to the origin of the product: it is purchased precisely as a declared imitation and is often promoted on social media through explicit references to the original product (“dupe of…”, “alternative to…”).

The phenomenon has grown exponentially as a result of three factors: the virality of content on TikTok and Instagram (the hashtag #dupe has accumulated billions of views), ultra-low-cost e-commerce platforms enabling extremely rapid production cycles, and, more recently, generative artificial intelligence tools, which make it possible to analyse and reproduce a designer’s lines, patterns and distinctive stylistic features