Scroll long enough on TikTok and you’ll see it: a pair of Zara trousers labeled a “dupe” for Acne Studios jeans. Same vibe, they’ll say. Except the cut isn’t the same, the fabric isn’t the same, and really, the only thing the two share is the fact that they’re pants.

So what even makes something a dupe? Is it about similarity? Price point? The faintest visual adjacency? Or is it simply the internet’s latest lazy shortcut for signaling taste?

The New Language of Fashion

Once upon a time, a dupe meant a copy — a stand-in for the original. A cheaper perfume that smelled almost identical, a fast-fashion coat cut to look like Céline. Today, the word has been stretched until it means almost nothing at all. “Dupe” is now slapped on anything that vaguely recalls something else, even if the resemblance is more about mood than material.

TikTok, of course, supercharged this shift. Every product is now explained in relation to another, more expensive reference. Instead of naming what something is, we call it what it isn’t. The language flattens nuance, erasing fabrications, cuts, and craftsmanship in favor of clout by association.

Historical Amnesia

Take the Tabi shoe. Scroll through #dupe and you’ll find endless “Margiela Tabi dupes.” Except… Maison Margiela didn’t invent the Tabi. The split-toe shoe traces back centuries in Japan, long before it became a fashion-girl litmus test in the West.

So what’s a dupe here? A brand borrowing a cultural form? A non-Margiela split-toe being dismissed as derivative? The label of “dupe” assumes ownership of an idea, when fashion has always been about circulation, reinterpretation, and evolution.

The Aesthetic Shortcut

Declaring something a dupe is less about accuracy and more about performance. It’s shorthand for: this item will let me sit at that table, visually speaking. The cut might be off, the history might be ignored, but what matters is the quick association.

A Zara coat is called a Max Mara dupe, not because it’s made with the same cashmere blend (it isn’t), but because it signals the same silhouette in a selfie. “Dupe” has become the language of aspiration — a way to frame consumption as cleverness, to imply knowledge of the original without ever engaging with its context.

Beyond Dupes

Here’s the thing: fashion is always referential. Designers lift, remix, and reinterpret constantly. That’s not new. What feels new is our obsession with calling everything a dupe, as if the only way to validate a purchase is by tethering it to something “higher.”

But sometimes a pair of trousers is just a pair of trousers. Sometimes a shoe is an homage, or a revival, or simply an iteration in a longer story. Not every resemblance needs to be collapsed into “dupe.”

Maybe the chicest move is to resist the language entirely — to stop looking for the shadow of something else and instead call things what they are.

Because if everything is a dupe, then nothing is.