#shein counterfeits

[ambisun]

I didn’t know that Shein is also selling pirated copies of Tarot and Oracle decks now:

Recently I’ve been getting a ton of emails of people asking me why A Little Rain Oracle doesn’t come with a guidebook or that they’ve “lost” their guidebook ( without proof of purchase)

Initially when these “lost guidebook “ email started to come in I was silly enough to not ask for proof of purchase and gave away my own copies of the guidebook only charging the cost of shipping. However as these emails started to accumulate, I realized something was wrong and realized that pirated copies of A Little Rain Oracle was being sold online with no guidebook, hence the emails.

If you see any decks on @Wish @temu @aliexpress it’s 100% fake. Even shops like @etsy @ebay @amazon are not free from counterfeit products either as I have often seen counterfeits of Oriens Animal Tarot or A Little Rain Oracle sold there.

Despite my best efforts, these pirated decks always reappear on market a few weeks/months after I report them. They know full well that small indie creators aren’t able to constantly report them as running a solo business already takes up most of their time.

If you’ve ever unknowingly purchased a pirated deck of mine or another creator, please do not feel too guilty over something you were tricked into. Instead please help to share this post or just help to spread awareness about the rampant piracy issues when you can.

As a small artist it’s really disheartening to see all these emails asking for the guidebook all while knowing that less than 3 people purchased the deck in the last few months. If you’ve ever been interested in getting A Little Rain Oracle or Pre-Order anything from Tales and Oracle of Eleven please checkout my website as I’m running a sale right now for my birthday month.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for reading all this. To other deck creators, has your deck been stolen? Have you received emails similar to mine? Do you know how to file take down reports? ( If not email me and I’ll send you info!) How do you deal/cope with it?

[mariacallous]

Earlier this month I complimented a friend on her new Bottega Jodie bag. She had recently got a promotion at work, and is now a senior manager at a respectable record label earning six figures. The bag was a celebratory gift, she told me, only it wasn’t Bottega—it was a dupe.

As someone who has a closet full of designer labels—and who could certainly afford to buy the real thing—her admission surprised me. My face must have given that away. “It’s real Italian leather,” she quickly followed up, “and their website says they manufacture in the same factories as some luxury brands. You couldn’t tell the difference, so why would I spend thousands more for basically the same thing?”

It’s a question many have been asking since dupe culture went supernova over the last few years. A shorthand for duplicate, dupes are cheaper alternatives that are basically the same as the real thing. Think of it as a cousin to counterfeit culture, but instead of being a cheap knock-off that infringes on a brand’s trademark, they’re uncannily similar imitations—promising the same qualities of the product at a fraction of the cost.

It’s not just my friend who loves them either. Roughly one-third of all US adults have intentionally bought a dupe, according to Morning Consult, with that figure rising to almost half for Gen Z shoppers and 44% for millennials. In the UK, research by Mintel shows 47% of consumers are now open to buying luxury lookalikes in 2024, compared to just 12% in 2016.

“The shame of buying these things has gone,” says Alice Sherwood, author of Authenticity: Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture. “Luxury prices have skyrocketed while the trend cycle has rapidly accelerated. People no longer want to spend upwards of £4000 on the latest ‘It’ bag that might be out of vogue within a year.”

Add their proliferation on social media into that mix, and the dupe culture has been normalised in ways that “knock-offs” from Canal Street never were, she says.

Just one scroll on TikTok would affirm this. At the time of writing over 260,000 posts have been made under the #dupes hashtag, with the majority featuring creators sharing their best dupe finds across fashion, beauty, lifestyle and homeware. Most of the time they’re from fast fashion retailers like Shein, Amazon and Temu, but more recently, a new crop of companies have been dominating dupe culture by offering quite a different proposition.

Low-Price Luxury

Take my friend’s new favourite brand, Quince. According to their website their mission is “to create products of equal or greater quality than the leading luxury brands at a much lower price”. To do so they’ve sourced factories used by “well-known luxury brands” to manufacture their goods, but by cutting out the middlemen and hefty markup, they can sell them at far more affordable prices.

They’re not the only ones. Leather goods manufacturer Sitoy Group Holdings regularly uploads videos on social media showcasing how the quality of its $100 handbags is almost identical to those sold for upwards of $1000, all the while advertising that they use the same production lines used by Prada, Tumi and Michael Kors. Then there's Chicjoc, one of the largest Chinese fashion apparel brands on Taobao and Tmall, claiming it uses the same fabric manufacturers as those used by the likes of Chanel, Valentino and Louis Vuitton.

This shift towards high-quality dupes puts luxury brands in a difficult position. For decades, they’ve justified their high prices with the promise of superior craftsmanship and materials. They've even poked fun at these imitations. But when brands are offering near-identical goods allegedly manufactured in the same factory as luxury brands for much, much less, that justification starts to crumble.

Another brand that has gained significant traction online this year is Los Angeles-based premium basics brand, Italic, with many consumers on Reddit expressing their satisfaction with the quality of the products. “Most of our products take 5–10 sample runs and 6–18 months, sometimes even longer,” says Italic CEO Jeremy Cai. “Our sourcing process involves rigorous vetting and ongoing quality controls, including factory certifications, samples, and production quality.”

This meticulous approach stands in stark contrast to what many might expect. Italic contacts 20-30 potential suppliers, evaluates 5-7 factories, and ultimately works with just 1-2 of them for any given product category, visiting each factory on-site.

The key difference between Italic and the high-profile brands using the same factories, Cai explains, is in the pricing: “Most of our factories' clients sell for 2-4x more than our SRPs (Suggested Retail Prices), often much higher.” By cutting out the markup typically associated with luxury goods, Italic offers high-quality products at a more accessible price point.

Cai is quick to point out that Italic does not market itself as a “dupe” brand. However, that hasn’t stopped consumers from drawing comparisons to more expensive luxury labels. In contrast, competitor Quince leans into dupe culture, positioning itself more overtly as a challenger to high-end brands. On Quince's website, woven intrecciato handbags, which resemble Bottega Veneta's iconic designs, are showcased alongside price comparisons to their luxury counterparts.

Quince also frequently analyses luxury competitors’ best-selling items to identify opportunities for replication. “Data collection is crucial in our product development process,” says a Quince spokesperson. “Our team uses a variety of sources, including Google Trends, social media, and customer feedback, to understand the market and ensure we’re delivering what people want.”

Quince’s strategy is built on the belief that luxury can—and should—be more accessible. “Our founding team, with years of experience in luxury and DTC (direct-to-consumer) retail, knew that competitors add a 40–60% markup on similar products,” continues the spokesperson. “As costs in the luxury market become more transparent, consumers are less willing to accept these inflated prices.”

To that end, Quince works globally to source manufacturing partners that share their commitment to transparency, while innovating to keep costs down. Every product page on their site includes detailed information about materials, country of origin, and certifications for working conditions along the supply chain.

Luxury brands, on the other hand, have traditionally kept their manufacturing processes shrouded in secrecy. William Lasry, founder of Glass Factory, is working to change that.

Lasry travels the globe, visiting and spotlighting factories with superior craftsmanship and ethical practices across his social media platforms. While not all brands are doing their very best, he is sceptical about some companies' supposed connections to luxury factories, pointing out that these dupe brands frequently exploit this ambiguity for marketing purposes.

“There are many instances where a factory will produce a sample for a luxury brand,” Lasry explains. “Luxury brands often request samples from hundreds of factories, but in many cases, nothing materialises beyond the sample stage. The factory might then turn around and claim, ‘We’ve made samples for Gucci,’ even though no production deal was ever finalised.”

Petros Analytis, head of research at Glass Factory, agrees that it’s hard to draw the line. “Unless they let us come into the factories and see for ourselves, it’s hard to ascertain.”

Premium Tax

While transparency might be slowly improving, one thing the luxury market has always clung onto is its appeal. Conglomerates like LVMH and Kering built empires on the foundation of an alluring narrative—one that combines centuries of heritage with modern-day prestige. By blending Old World craftsmanship with the new-age glamour of celebrity culture, they made handbags, shoes, and clothing a gateway to an elite, exclusive world.

For a long time consumers were happy to pay big bucks to belong in this world. Perhaps unknowingly, they were buying not just a product but an experience. The true value of a designer label wasn't simply measured by the stitching or material, but by the feeling it evoked—the confidence boost, the social status, the feeling of exclusivity. “It’s a real skill to make a handbag into an object desired by millions of women, one that has so much meaning and can do so much for your self-confidence,” notes Sherwood.

Yet, behind the curtain of glamour, the reality of some products was very different. While consumers believed they were buying the pinnacle of luxury, what they were often getting was a product only marginally superior to midrange alternatives—and occasionally no better at all. The excessively high margins were less a reflection of quality and more a tax on the brands' appeal.

“They are the architects of their own problems,” continues Sherwood. “By making so much of their products not about the tangible product, but about the intangible aspects of the brands - those sexy ads, the celebs who carry your products, the stores, the glossy ads, the slogans, the heritage backstory, all that stuff that isn’t actually the product itself.”

In turn they’ve created an enormous gap between what consumers are actually paying for and the real value of the product. As these companies have increasingly pursued the ultra-wealthy, they’ve left a gap in the market that other brands, eager to capitalise, are starting to fill. “They know that the prices at the very top of luxury are too high to reflect the actual value,” Sherwood says. “But have turned these notable silhouettes and styles into desirable items that a dupe brand can free ride off of.”

Then, recently, the veneer began to crack even further. In March, Italian luxury brand Loro Piana became embroiled in scandal after an investigation revealed the material behind their $9,000 sweaters was sourced by low-paid workers in Peru. Just a few months later, in July, Italian prosecutors alleged sweatshop-like conditions in factories supplying certain products for high-end labels such as Dior and Armani. The revelations triggered outrage among consumers, many of whom had long trusted these brands to uphold the highest standards of craftsmanship and ethics.

Across online forums like the r/handbag subreddit, once-loyal customers voiced their disillusionment. For many, these scandals revealed that the luxury brands they idolised were not living up to their promises. Both Loro Piana and Dior have denied the allegations. However, The Business of Fashion revealed that Milan's public prosecutor said in a court document that they had found “an illegal practice so entrenched and proven [that it could] be considered part of a broader business policy exclusively aimed at increasing profit.” Neither company has been charged in relation to the probe.

Such reputational damage couldn’t have come at a worse time for luxury brands. Coupled with the rise of dupe culture, these scandals are forcing consumers to rethink their relationship with high-end goods. If craftsmanship is no longer exceptional, and ethical practices are called into question, what exactly are people paying for when they buy luxury?

Rebuilding the Dream

Recent sales figures underline just how far demand for luxury mega-brands has fallen from its post-pandemic highs. In July, some of the industry’s biggest players reported disappointing revenues for the second consecutive quarter. LVMH, the world’s leading luxury conglomerate, missed sales estimates, while Gucci’s parent company Kering, experienced a decline of 11%. Other major brands like Richemont and Burberry also reported disappointing figures, with first-quarter sales plummeting by a staggering 20%.

At the heart of luxury’s current struggles is the erosion of the very dream that once propelled the industry. The disconnect between the marketing mythology and the reality of production has left consumers feeling disillusioned, meaning the days of blindly paying a premium for a logo may be at risk.

The democratisation of information and consumer power through social media has played a huge part in this. Platforms like TikTok and Reddit are filled with conversations that challenge the industry's value proposition, which has made it so much harder for luxury brands to control their narrative.

To regain their position, Brittany Steiger, principal analyst of retail & eCommerce at Mintel says they will need to focus on what once made them so desirable—authenticity, superior craftsmanship, and a narrative of prestige that feels both aspirational and attainable. Some experts suggest that embracing more transparent practices and truly living up to their ethical and quality promises could also be the way forward. Brands that fail to do so, may find themselves increasingly irrelevant in a world where high-quality dupes continue to gain ground.

It’s clear that the old model of luxury has been disrupted, and it’s no longer just about price anymore. In the battle between heritage and value, consumers are asking more questions—and luxury brands must have better answers. And if they don’t, there’s a whole industry on the sidelines who do.

[museenkuss]

Hi Marie! What does B540 Girl mean?

Hi! :) In short, it refers to a girl who wears Baccarat Rouge 540, a very strong perfume. On public transport, sitting in the same cart as someone like this can be really, really annoying (or worse, depending on your nose, your allergies, and other factors the "B540 Girl on the Train"TM doesn't care about). So basically, what I was saying was "we can be sure we're not the type of person who wears a very heavy fragrance, disregarding the needs of the people around them".

There is more to say about this specific example, however - regarding current trends, greed and luxury, respect and status symbols, etc. I got carried away and did say it, and you're welcome to read it if you'd like! :) You don't have to, though, the short version sums up what I meant in the ask)

Baccarat Rouge 540 is a scent created by Francis Kurkdijan, a perfumer who has created a lot of very popular fragrances for different fragrance houses over the years. This scent, he created for his own brand, Maison Francis Kukrdijan. So the fragrance is sometimes shortened to "Baccarat Rouge" or, more cryptically, "B540 by MFK". This is a niche brand, which means a bottle will cost you between 250-450€.

The scent is incredibly popular and currently, we live in a time were "dupe" has become a very accepted concept. When I was a teenager, we called those counterfeits "knock offs" or "fakes" and the mere concept was embarrassing. So, in other words: The market is flooded with B540 knock offs. Zara sells one, for example. Kurkdijan himself has produced similar scents for other houses before creating this one for his own brand, for example Burberry Her Elixir. Cloud by Ariana Grande is also said to be very similar, but I'm not sure whether he created it. You'll find hundreds of tiktok girlies proudly showing off their fake B540s online and discussing which knock off is most convincing. Shein culture for perfume. Which is unfortunate, because the scent itself is most definitely very well done - FK is no doubt a skilled perfumer. However, this scent to me is always connected to this tacky greed that sticks to dupe culture. "How can I get this for cheaper?" - this is not meant to attack people who can't afford perfume this expensive. I think most of us would think three times before spending 250€. BUT the shein haul mindset of "if I get the knockoff of this, I can ALSO get the knockoff of that, and the knockoff of that, too, since it's all so cheap anyways" is very gross to me. It's pure greed and gluttony, there's no love or respect for the actual product anymore. --- Again, this doesn't apply to everyone who buys knockoff perfumes or tries to get a fragrance that is similar to one they like but can't afford. I have nothing negative to say to these people, I know what it's like. I'm saying that unfortunately, to me personally, B450 has become a symbol for a specific kind of gluttony.

To sum up this part: The scent is very popular. It's a status symbol, but you can also douse yourself in dupes and similar scents for a very wide range of prices.

As for the scent: This scent is very strong. Again, it's popular and taste is subjective. It's extremely sweet, smells of red fruits with something "deeper" that to me feels as if you're eating a bunch of mushed, sugared fruits (strawberries, red currant..?) with a handful of dirt thrown in. It grinds between my teeth. I notice when people wear this scent (or a similar one) around me, and it quickly becomes oppressive to me. I probably don't notice every single girl who wears a variation of this scent, but since it IS so very popular where I live, whenever I go out (shopping, uni, public transport), I'm very likely to encounter at least one person that smells like this. Strongly and oppressively. This also slips into another conversation around a current trend where the goal is to smell "so the whole room can smell you" - which is wildly inconsiderate not only to people with allergies, but also jsut to normal people who don't want to be trapped with your perfume. It's the equivalent of playing tiktoks on your phone on public transport. But once more, I don't want to hint that every girl who wears this fragrance (or a similar one) just showers in it, ignorant towards the damage she's doing to the people in her surroundings. It's a strong perfume, and when you get too used to is, you might end up overdoing it without noticing. OR, also an option: I notice is especially because the scent isn't pleasant to me.

To summarise: to me a "B450 girl" is someone who smells very strongly of a fragrance without regard or respect for the people around her, and who's a slave to fast fashion ideas of trendiness. It's a symbol more than a real person, and as such, it's a symbol for trends that are both inconsiderate and tacky.

[carbomcoco]

buying shein counterfeits isn't very "anti-capitalist, eat the rich" of you. is it suddenly fine for corporations to steal the labor that independent creators underwent to design the products just because you wanna buy it for cheaper or think the real thing is too expensive? is that what we're deciding now?

[rememberwren]

Hi, just wanted to pop in and add a reminder for anyone listening: be very cautious when shopping for toys!!!! Certain materials, like TPE, are only non-toxic NOT body-safe. TPE in particular is porous and holds bacteria very easily, causing an increased risk in UTIs and yeast infections, as well as mold growth. Because of its porous nature, it CANNOT be sterilized. There's also the risk of chemicals leeching if the toy made from these materials is insertable. Also, sites like Amazon, Shein, Temu, etc. are NOT reputable sellers - they very easily sell mislabeled or counterfeit goods, meaning you could get toys that are not safe for you. If you can, shop from reputable sellers AND do your research on toys before buying them!!

Thank you for this 🩶

[timesofinnovation]

Discover the latest industry insights for fashion retail professionals to excel in job interviews, promotions, or enhance workplace performance through increased market awareness. At BoF Careers, we curate business intelligence from our editorial briefings, newsletters, case studies, podcasts, and events to offer key takeaways tailored to your retail job function. This includes exciting live job listings from global partners like Paul Smith, Acne Studios, MyGemma, and Alexander McQueen. ### 1. Emerging Multi-Brand Retail Stores Several luxury e-commerce sites have changed owners or closed, creating opportunities for innovative retailers. Julie Gilhart, a business consultant, highlights the importance of good curation, intimacy, and unique in-store experiences to attract hyper-digital consumers. Examples include The Webster, Dover Street Market, and newcomers like ESSX and Café Forgot. ### 2. Gap's Strategic Overhaul Under CEO Richard Dickson, Gap has overhauled its visual identity, focusing on core styles and streamlining its e-commerce experience. The appointment of Zac Posen as creative director has added trendiness and accessibility. The company posted sales increases for the first time in years, highlighting successful collaborations with brands like Dôen. ### 3. Retailers' Role in Societal Contribution Futurist Doug Stephens argues that future competitive advantage for retailers will stem from contributing value to society rather than extracting it. This shift is necessary due to depleted societal systems, requiring a historic rethink in retail strategies. ### 4. Von Dutch's Market Revitalization Von Dutch’s new owner, White Space, aims to capitalize on its cultural relevance and global brand awareness. Priorities include boosting US business, enhancing marketing with fresh collaborations, and balancing licensing challenges to regain market relevance. ### 5. Amazon's Luxury Market Entry Amazon's recent efforts to enter the luxury and ultra-cheap goods markets pose challenges. Competing with LVMH could see potential, given the current online luxury fashion turmoil, while struggling to outdo Shein and Temu at their game could risk Amazon's convenience proposition. ### 6. Tourism's Impact on Fashion Retail The post-pandemic tourism boom continues, with shifts in travelers' spending patterns affecting brands. Western tourists favor experiences over products, while Chinese tourists prefer domestic shopping. Fashion brands are adapting by offering exclusive resort pop-ups and duty-free airport boutiques. ### 7. France's Crackdown on Counterfeit Goods Ahead of the Paris Olympics, French police are intensifying efforts against counterfeit goods, seizing thousands of fake branded items. This crackdown aims to protect intellectual property despite criticisms of its impact on economically vulnerable sellers. ### 8. Revolve's Acquisition of Alexandre Vauthier Revolve is buying the haute couture house Alexandre Vauthier, allowing the brand to return to the Paris couture calendar. This move aligns with Revolve's strategy to diversify its roster with top-end designer concepts, supporting emerging brands in a challenging economic landscape. Stay ahead of trends and secure your next career move with BoF Careers. Explore job opportunities and industry insights tailored for fashion retail professionals. --- By focusing on current market dynamics and providing actionable insights, this article aims to inform and engage retail professionals, enhancing their understanding and performance in the fashion industry.

[isfeed]

Shein is now copying Temu’s copyright lawsuit

How many of those $5 skirts do these retailers have to sell to pay their lawyers? | Image: The Verge The Shein complaint about Temu kicks off with a bang, accusing Temu of being “an unlawful enterprise built on counterfeiting, theft of trade secrets, infringement of intellectual property rights, and fraud” in just the first sentence. But I guess you have to go big when the lawsuit against you…

[ericvanderburg]

New EU regulations target Shein’s counterfeit fashion problem

http://i.securitythinkingcap.com/T63FYb

[aboscher]

TikTok Launches TikTok Shops to All Retailers in the U.S.

TikTok has just launched TikTok shop, which allows viewers to shop for products on its app, to all retailers in the U.S., where it was previously available to selected retailers only. Features that come with this new launch include a shop tab on home screens, livestream shopping, shoppable ads, and an affiliate program for creators. This launch provides more ways for products in the U.S. to be discovered, as well as more ways for creators on TikTok to monetize their videos. 

Image from TikTok's Blog

TikTok’s livestream shopping has been a great success in Asia, particularly in China, with its local version of the app, Douyin, which reportedly had an increase of over 300% in product sales in 2022. With such lucrative success, TikTok is taking a leap in expanding its market to the U.S.  However, that success has yet to be seen in the U.S., where livestream shopping has not caught on to consumers.  It seems U.S. consumers are hesitant to shop on TikTok, possibly due to concerns surrounding the Chinese ownership of the app.

It has been reported that TikTok Shop was showcasing “cheap and counterfeit products from China.” It’s revealed in a New York Times article that up to 90% of its sellers are based outside of the U.S. This may change as more and more retailers in the U.S. may register as sellers on TikTok, as over 200,000 sellers have already registered with the app.

To gain more traction in the U.S. TikTok is leveraging popular trends on the app, using hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, which has billions of views. It would be difficult, however, to compete with large established e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Shein, especially as TikTok is pushing its livestream shopping feature when live shopping makes up 2% of the e-commerce market and 0.3 of the retail market in the U.S.

Ultimately, TikTok is going on full-scale to encourage live shopping to their audiences. Although the results have been underwhelming so far, TikTok’s popularity in the U.S. and its ability to drive trends may encourage U.S. retailers to sell with them, and encourage its audience to buy with them.

Word Count: 358

[ambisun]

Flash sale for A Little Rain Oracle!!

So, my decks have been counterfeited so much that sales for A little rain has been abysmal. I constantly see the decks being sold on Temu/Shein/ebay and getting emails asking me “where’s the guidebook” however I haven’t been seeing any sales at all for the past few months.

I’ve decided to run a flash sale to lower the price as much as I can to try to compete with the pirated decks. If you want to support a small queer business and get an official deck for your loved ones, this is the perfect time to get one.

For follks in USA after conversion it should to $39USD approximately. Your order would help me directly in paying rent and bills, so if you’re considering getting a gift for yourself or a friend do consider getting a deck ☺️

Even if this isn’t for you, a reblog would be appreciated to help me get the word out there!

[djgir]

Alot of this happening on etsy too

[mariacallous]

The days of buying ultracheap stuff on TikTok Shop may be winding down.

Starting today, the fees TikTok charges sellers increase from 2 percent to 6 percent of the price of each order. They will creep up to 8 percent in July. The changes may mark a crucial moment for people who shop on TikTok and for the platform itself, potentially forcing up prices and testing shopper’s loyalty to the social app’s ecommerce play.

TikTok Shop launched in the US in September with strikingly low prices compared to other online stores, thanks to its subsidies to sellers and shoppers. Influencers and entrepreneurs embraced the opportunity: TikTok saw a surge of sellers that outpaced growth in vendors at competitors like Shopify and Amazon, according to a March report from SimilarWeb, which tracks web traffic. But from the beginning TikTok Shop has hosted deals that appear too good to be true, such as deeply discounted—and possibly counterfeit—snail mucin skin care products and Stanley tumblers, as well as jewelry, socks, and other odds and ends for less than $1.

After a successful holiday shopping season, TikTok Shop’s fee increases see the platform trying to prove it can become a sustainable, habit-forming mainstay in ecommerce. “The true test for [TikTok Shop’s] longevity and its sustainability will be as these incentives start to roll back,” says Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst for social media at Insider Intelligence, a market research firm. “A lot of the sellers that have found success on TikTok Shop are smaller businesses that really benefited from the incentives.” If TikTok Shop continues to increase its fees, those sellers may struggle, Enberg predicts. TikTok did not provide a comment on the fee changes for this story.

TikTok Shop’s seller fees are still lower than many fees for Amazon sellers, which vary by type of product. The lowest are 5 percent, for low-cost apparel, but they generally range between 8 and 20 percent for jewelry and fine art. But TikTok Shop is a different beast than the everything store. While many people turn to Amazon to search for necessities, on TikTok Shop buyers often find products they didn’t know they wanted through influencers and algorithmic discovery—more similar to Temu or Shein.

TikTok sellers face the additional challenge of needing their pitches to stand out from the parade of loud, viral video content the app services up. Influencers and brands selling through TikTok Shop have to convince people scrolling for entertainment to stop and shop. People are often “in the app to do something completely different,” says Michael Yamartino, an ecommerce expert and CEO of Route, a platform that helps brands ship orders.

Sellers that respond to higher fees by raising prices may discover that they’ve lost a key ingredient needed for success in TikTok’s ecommerce model. To get TikTok users’ attention and items into their virtual carts, “you have to be loud,” Yamartino says. “You have to be shockingly cheap, shockingly engaging, and super on trend.”

TikTok Shop does still offer subsidies to sellers. Shoppers don’t pay shipping on orders of $20 or more. Last week, TikTok was advertising a Spring Sale in the app’s Shop tab, offering discounts up to 30 percent (a combination of TikTok subsidies and sellers slashing prices) and free shipping on some items. Among them: a Duolingo owl head covering, 10 pairs of socks for $3.80, and a set of stuffed capybara plush dolls.

TikTok’s fee changes could be most challenging for small-time or individual sellers that embraced its shopping platform, some hawking cheap or questionable items. The flood of random, kitschy and trendy products has eclipsed some more established retailers and bigger brands.

Paul Jauregui, who cofounded BK Beauty with his wife Lisa, says their company has seen massive success since they started also selling their products on TikTok Shop, selling more than 168,000 makeup brushes and cosmetics on the app. It’s the sort of product primed for TikTok, where beauty content is huge and influencers can easily showcase makeup tools. “When you hit this trend, you’re just carried on this wave that takes you very high quickly,” Jauregui says.

Jauregui still believes in the power of TikTok. For now, BK Beauty will likely absorb some of the additional costs, but the fee changes may affect how the company advertises on the platform or engages in TikTok Shop’s flash sales, he says. “The subsidies have started to fade. We’re still leaning in.”

[washingtonposttoday]

Shein wants to be the next Amazon Marketplace. It’s already dealing with counterfeits and copyright issues. http://dlvr.it/SrnD84

[swatianandbhat]

Burdens of Burberry

Burberry is a brand associated with royalty, nobility and classic history. When I first hear the word "Burberry", trench coats automatically come to my mind.

Now, trench coats or umbrellas can be used by people of any age and remain a classic requirement, as long as there's rough weather. However, interest in other kinds of apparel, accessories, etc. change with trends, especially in the current digital age.

By not having proper licensing and through the proliferation of various counterfeits, Burberry lost some of its value since it had become even more accessible to the general public in this manner.

During World War I, resources were limited and clothing options were also lesser, and with the British royalty following the Burberry trend, it would have been easier to maintain the allure.

In the current times, with a lot more options, more focus on sustainability and presence of more boutique stores with unique designs, it might be more difficult to maintain the elusiveness, especially since Burberry was trying to rebrand as "accessible luxury".

The main problem I see is that Burberry wants to position itself in such a manner that it's trying to be too many things for too many categories of people - being accessible, providing multiple options in apparel, outwear and accessories, providing options for a large range of ages. With competition such as SheIn, where people looking for trends and affordability can find trendy inexpensive apparel, and brands such as Gucci or Chanel that provide timeless classic high-end luxury products, Burberry's essence might get lost.

I imagine luxury brands such as Gucci, Prada, Dior and Hermes least likely to be harmed by counterfeits since those buying the actual brand products would try to maintain the exclusivity and being able to identify counterfeits in the circles. These brands also sell luxury handbags whose retail value keeps increasing over the years.

It is about the limited pieces/quantity of such products and the right to earn one's presence in the inner elite circles that help such high-end luxury brands maintain their position.

[arctic-hands]

Anyone know where to get the original stationery that Shein steals from? I was going over my first and only Shein haul and wishing I had more like it, but I have been unsuccessful in finding similar stickers and ephemera to it, aside from some floral photo sticker booklets on Amazon, Walmart's site, and AliExpress–all of which are just as likely to be counterfeit as Shein's

[dippedanddripped]

At last year’s American Music Awards in November 2019, Billie Eilish caused a media stir with her performance of “all the good girls go to hell,” backed by a hellscape of pyrotechnics and wearing a bedazzled shirt stating, “No Music on a Dead Planet.” It was only one of many iconic looks that Los Angeles-based brand Freak City has had a hand in creating. Riffing off the bootlegging practices of underground hustlers in the San Fernando Valley, the studio’s custom-embroidered and hand-painted fits have been the go-to red carpet choice of pop stars like Lil Nas X, Diplo, Rosalía, and reggaeton queens Bad Gyal and Tomasa del Real. Freak City is so quintessentially Californian that even Kim Kardashian is a fan. As such, it’s no surprise that they’d catch the attention of LA native Eilish, who tapped them to collaborate on her own capsule collection.

Though they now count A-listers among their clientele, Freak City, as founders Valerie “Vally Girl” Campbell and Justin “Time” Romero describe it, is “an all-encompassing underworld of outcasts, non-conformists, abnormal, abstract, punk rock, hip hop, trashy, beautiful weirdos, submerged in the realms of fashion, art, and music.”

At its core, Freak City is a lifestyle brand and creative studio tied to a commercial space in Los Angeles. Entering the space—through its inconspicuous doors nestled between a medical marijuana dispensary and a tourist company—is like tapping into an alternative universe, where the traditional rules for retail spaces are broken and creativity runs wild. After spending time in their shop, design studio, and music studio, visitors are encouraged to leave their mark, whether by tagging the walls or laying down a beat in the studio.

Like many great American success stories, Freak City’s can be traced back to being “at the right place at the right time.” Campbell and Romero’s origins trace back to the “MYSPACE days” of the late aughts, when the two were performing as a duo under the alias The Keyishe. “We were playing shows, making clothes, and started throwing parties for our friends and ourselves, as there was no scene for the type of music we were making at the time,” they say. In the throes of the financial crisis of 2008, they stumbled upon an industrial space off Melrose Avenue in East Hollywood, and due to the recession, they were able to qualify for a commercial lease without a credit check.

Freak City’s humble beginnings, they explain, involved a lot of trial and error. Taking cues from Warehouse culture, it was initially a free-form space that showcased underground music by night and acted as a makeshift shop and gallery by day, where fashion and art was sold exclusively to their friends. “Word of our mini-movement started spreading, and our parties turned into events, attracting bigger artists and musicians,” like Kreayshawn (of “Gucci Gucci��� fame), who notoriously celebrated her twenty-second birthday at Freak City in 2011. Eventually, Freak City moved to its second location on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. After that, they claim, “things only got weirder.”

Freak City became a destination for spontaneous sets by nonconformists like Peaches, M.I.A., and Mykki Blanco, and Vally Girl was approached to style Nicki Minaj when she was supporting Britney Spears on her Femme Fatale tour in 2011.

In 2017, Freak City appeared at Mexico City fashion week, showcasing a collection of raunchy club kid-like fits drawing from pole-dancing culture, construction and safety hazard signs, as well as their signature bootlegging-style hoodies and long-sleeves with custom logos and baseball tees.

Freak City launched its own independent record label with a compilation titled Sounds of Freak City, a mix of old-school electro, funk, and trash pop, with Justin Time’s graffiti artwork gracing its cover. Several years later, the compilation would be a visual foreshadowing of their most celebrated collaboration to date–Billie Eilish. After making what they call a “love connection” through Eilish’s stylist Samantha Burkhart, Freak City launched the pop star’s official capsule collection in July 2019. Offering Eilish’s signature looks, like oversized tees and loose baseball shorts, Freak City’s explosive graffiti styles graced the collection of ten coveted (and quickly sold-out) pieces.

To celebrate the collection’s one-year anniversary and recent limited re-stock, we caught up with the founders of Freak City for Sound and Style, Electronic Beats’ vertical centered on the music world’s unique aesthetics. Vally Girl and Justin Time explain how they contrast the concept of “keeping it real” with counterfeit aesthetics, how they approach the fetishization of status symbols like brand logos, and how independent labels ensure their creative autonomy is kept alive.

Where do you draw inspiration?

We’re inspired by our home, the city of Los Angeles—from the streets in Boyle Heights to Beverly Hills, from skid row to Soho House.

What kind of music could we expect to hear at Freak City–do you have any particular favorite tracks?  

At the moment, we mostly listen to meditative soundscapes, healing frequencies, and trap. Our musical taste is far and wide. We’re just as into instrumental music as we are into turn up music. Some of our favorites right now are Khruangbin, SiR, Phem, N8noface, Chicano Batman, Young Dolph, and, of course, Gucci Mane [whose music video for “Nothin On Ya” was filmed at Freak City]. That’s our typical playlist with mixed in experimental instrumentals.

There’s this image of fakeness associated with LA. Is Freak City and its counterfeit aesthetic an interpretation of that? How does Freak City keep it real in a city so associated with fakeness? Real recognize real. Especially in a place like Los Angeles, where people come here to try to be something that they’re not. Being born and raised in LA, it’s a lot easier to see through the bullshit. Part of why we left Hollywood was to get away from the fakeness and return to realness. At one point, we were inspired by counterfeit culture as an art medium, posing the question, “What’s real and what’s fake, and does it even matter?” We see a lot of fakeness succeed and realness fail, so it’s interesting on many levels beyond fashion. Through the years, our team has gotten smaller and our success has grown bigger because we’ve been able to focus with fewer distractions and have gone deeper underground. The saying, “Fake it ’til you make it” has never resonated with us. We’d rather make it so you never have to fake it.

You recently called out fast-fashion retailer SHEIN for stealing your designs from the Billie Eilish collection. How do you fight back against copycat practices in the fashion industry?

Communication is the key. Behind every company is a human being, and it’s important to start constructive conversations on how to work together instead of against each other. SHEIN has remained positive in sorting out the situation, and you never know, this might lead to bridging the gap between independent design and large-scale industries. We have to remember we are in the Instagram era of copy and paste, and most big brands don’t even know who they’re copying at the end of the day. The problem is hard to escape, but problem-solving is key.

OUR WORK DESCRIBES THE IDEA OF DESIRE, LOVE, LUST, PLEASURE, AND PAIN.

Have you considered that Freak City contributes to the fetishization of wealth, or do you see your creations as a creative way to express critique at such fetishization?

[At Freak City] it’s all about the art of the struggle. The hustle. The good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly. Making something from nothing. Our work describes the idea of desire, love, lust, pleasure, and pain.

All things that humans struggle with in this life. Most of our designs have subliminal messages/meanings and evoke questions more than answers, which is open for interpretation. We try not to show bias, and you don’t get to choose who appreciates your work. You can’t hate the player, hate the game.