A dupe is an inexpensive product that closely resembles a famous and pricier one, from leggings and handbags to lipstick. Unlike a fake, it does not carry the original brand’s name, and its fans present each find as a small triumph of clever shopping.
The word has two quite different lives. The older dupe, recorded in English since 1681 and borrowed from French, means a person who is easily fooled. The informal dupe meaning a duplicate appeared around 1900, and social media gave it a second career: videos tagged with it had passed 3.5 billion views on TikTok by 2023. That May, Lululemon answered with a stunt at a Los Angeles shopping centre, handing a free pair of its Align leggings, retail price 118 dollars, to shoppers who turned up wearing a look-alike. It was a rare case of a brand rewarding people for having bought something else.