Online shopping is full of copycats

What It Covers

Fitness creator Cassie Ho battles knockoff products from her Popflex activewear line, facing over 2,065 design infringements since 2021. The episode explores fast fashion's waste problem through a Brooklyn textile recycling facility visit.

Key Questions Answered

• •Design patent enforcement: Cassie Ho secured a USPTO design patent for her viral Pirouette skort after Shein copied it within three months of launch, but enforcement remains difficult as American retailers like Nordstrom, Macy's, and Victoria's Secret now sell dupes requiring expensive legal battles against billion-dollar corporations with larger legal budgets.
• •Dupe detection volume: Ho's team files takedown requests for an average of 600 knockoff listings monthly in 2025 across TikTok Shop, Amazon, Temu, AliExpress, and Shein. Two full-time staff members constantly submit forms to platforms, though enforcement varies unpredictably depending on who reviews each case, making consistent protection nearly impossible.
• •AI-powered counterfeiting: Counterfeiters now use AI to swap faces on stolen marketing content, creating deepfake videos that make customers believe they're buying from the original creator. This includes changing Ho's Asian face to Caucasian models while keeping her body, house, and product, causing customers to blame her for poor-quality knockoffs they unknowingly purchased.
• •Textile recycling scale: FabScrap processes 6,000-7,000 pounds of pre-consumer textile waste weekly from brands like J.Crew and Macy's, having diverted 2 million pounds from landfills. Materials get sorted by volunteers into categories for resale, downcycling into insulation called "shoddy," or fiber-to-fiber recycling, with denim being easiest to recycle due to consistent composition.
• •Digital wardrobe management: Create outfit documentation by photographing yourself, long-pressing the image on iPhone to remove background, and pasting into Notes app as stickers. This creates a searchable visual archive for work outfits and special events, eliminating decision fatigue without tedious manual logging required by dedicated wardrobe apps.