Fast-fashion brands are often accused of copying the designs of high-end fashion brands, thereby reducing the distinctiveness of high-end brands and eroding their brand equity. HKUST’s Zijun (June) Shi and colleagues propose a novel way to investigate whether and how fast-fashion copycats affect high-end brand equity.

Despite the enormous size of the fashion industry and the purported negative impact of copycats, the effect of fast fashion copycats on high-end brands has been little studied. “This is likely because large-scale data on individual consumers’ choices of brands and styles are unavailable,” explain the researchers, “and it is difficult to quantify or measure fashion styles.”

To overcome these two challenges, the authors obtained user-generated data from a large fashion-specific social media platform, applied state-of-the-art deep learning methods to conduct image analytics, and used structural modeling to investigate users’ brand and style choices.

The results show that high-end brands may be justified in their concern. “Most social media users can often derive the same utility by substituting a high-end brand with a good style from a fast-fashion brand,” report the authors. “High-end brands might thus be losing customers to fast-fashion brands that provide comparable styles.”

However, tightening copyright policy to ban copycat styles might not always be the answer. “High-end brands might benefit from advocating for a copyright policy that bans only extremely similar designs,” the researchers explain. “But a harsher copyright policy that prohibits even moderately similar designs might hurt high-end brands by suppressing market expansion.”

The results have important managerial and policy implications. With an understanding of how fashion consumers value brands and styles on social media, managers can make better decisions on social media strategies, branding, and product design. The insight that fast-fashion copycats can both help and harm premium brands could also inform policy makers about the potential consequences of prohibiting fashion copycats.