Stop Calling Every Cheap Pair of Jeans a “Dupe”

If I see one more “these are identical to ___ jeans but from Target” video, I may lose it.

And listen—I am all for finding a great piece at a lower price point with some caveats - it better still be quality and not have to be babied to stay alive. But denim is one category where I am extremely skeptical of the word dupe.

Because did you just try them on in the dressing room?

Or have you actually:

• worn them for an entire day?

• worn them multiple times between washes?

• washed and dried them?

• seen how much they stretch out?

• seen whether the knees bag?

• seen how the waistband holds its shape?

• owned the pair you’re comparing them to long enough to genuinely know how they perform? (This is huge!)

Those are very different things.

I own an admittedly unreasonable amount of denim, and I’ve tried, styled, washed and worked with thousands of pairs of jeans over the years. Denim is one of the most finicky fabrications there is. A pair can look fantastic for five minutes in a fitting room and be an entirely different pair of jeans four hours later.

And people are incredibly particular about their denim—very similar to swimwear. Fit is personal. Fabric composition matters. Recovery matters. Construction matters. How they wear over time matters.

So when someone puts on a $30 pair once and immediately declares them “exactly the same” as a pair they may or may not (MOST LIKELY DO NOT) even own… I need us to use a little discernment.

A lower-priced jean can absolutely be a great jean.

But “looks similar when I first put it on” and “performs the same over months of wear” are not the same claim.

And sometimes the better value really is buying the good pair once instead of buying the dupe, realizing after two washes that it doesn’t hold up the way you hoped, and starting the search all over again.

I’m not anti-affordable denim.

I’m anti-calling something a dupe before we have enough information to know that it actually is one.