<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The coexistence of luxury fashion houses and ready-to-wear retailers is based on the tacit acceptance of the “inspiration” of certain collections<\/strong><\/b> by others, as a guarantee of the success of the original collection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The emergence of duplicates, however, is tending to upset this balance: first perfumes, then cosmetics, clothing, jewelry and luggage<\/strong><\/b> have all become sectors affected by this phenomenon. Derived from the term duplicates, these low-cost (and low-priced) imitations of luxury products<\/strong><\/b> are promoted<\/strong><\/b> in particular by “influencers” (1) via social networks and<\/strong><\/b> online blogs<\/strong><\/b>, generating in 2023 more than 6.2 billion views for the hashtag “#dupe” (2)<\/strong><\/b> (i.e. dupe du sac Birkin by Herm\u00e8s, dupe du baume Black Honey by Clinique…).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The attractiveness of the price, all the more so in times of inflation<\/strong><\/b>, seems to be the main motivation<\/strong><\/b>: according to EUIPO (3), “a third of Europeans believe that it is acceptable to buy counterfeit products when the price of the genuine product is too high”, a proportion that rises to 50% among younger people. This practice is not without consequences, with the clothing industry<\/strong><\/b> suffering the most from counterfeit products, “with an annual loss of revenue of almost 12 billion euros<\/strong><\/b> ” (4). In the cosmetics<\/strong><\/b> sector, the French industry<\/strong><\/b> is the most affected by counterfeiting<\/strong><\/b>, “with annual lost sales of 800 million euros<\/strong><\/b> “.<\/p>\n What’s more, the specificity of “dupes” lies in the fact that they are similar to “silent” counterfeits,<\/strong><\/b> i.e. difficult to detect (5) or only partially regulated by law (6): the resulting feeling of impunity<\/strong><\/b> is likely to encourage this purchasing practice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In addition to a drop in<\/strong><\/b> sales, luxury brands suffer damage to their reputation (uniqueness and originality of products)<\/strong><\/b> and<\/strong><\/b> a devaluation of their brand<\/strong><\/b>, while smaller designers can be robbed by the giants of the copying industry (7).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n<\/p>\n \t\tPossible actions to combat these inappropriate “duplicates<\/h2>\n