“I’m one of the world’s biggest fast-fashion designers. And, unfortunately, this is happening completely against my will,” declared Marcelo Gaia, the Brazilian-American mastermind behind the nostalgic, Gen Z–adored label Mirror Palais. In an Instagram Reel from August, Gaia then goes on to address the many elephants in the sartorial room: virality, the endless copycat nature of fast fashion and questions of ownership. The designer doesn’t know exactly what made him say such a striking sentence. What he does know, Gaia tells Fashionista, is that the words surfaced after exploring TikTok Shop.
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An e-commerce platform integrated within the app, TikTok Shop allows brands, creators and businesses to sell products directly to users. It also allows anyone to see how many units of any given item have been sold. While navigating the platform, the founder of Mirror Palais noticed that several companies were using his label’s imagery to sell inexpensive dupes of his designs. Seeing his work repurposed wasn’t even the most shocking part.
“It’s one thing if a company takes the images and sells a reproduction — maybe they sold two or three,” says the designer. In this case, however, a single company had sold 2,163 sets (at press time, it’s closer to 3,000) based on Mirror Palais’ Baby I’m Yours silk dress and matching shorts from its Valentine’s Day capsule collection. The TikTok Shop set costs about $30, while the original (made from 100% silk) went for $990 total. As Gaia continued to explore the platform in awe, he discovered a slew of similar product listings, concluding that other companies had collectively distributed more than 10,000 dupes of his creation. As he noted in the video, his brand only sold 35 tops and 18 pairs of shorts from his original set, total.
Photos: TikTok Shop (L), Courtesy of Mirror Palais (R)
For the Mirror Palais founder, it was all very eye-opening — an “aha” moment that underscored just how vulnerable creative work in fashion can be now. And because it was so revealing for him, he knew it would be for others, too.
Fast fashion has loomed over Gaia’s ideas pretty much since Mirror Palais’ founding in 2019 — with some of his most viral designs being copied by companies such as House of CB, Laagam, Shop Muse Club and Oh Polly. Around 2022, the Maria Dress ($625), for instance, inspired an Amazon dupe priced at just $17, which was later promoted by an influencer in a video that has since amassed more than 1.1 million views. In 2024, a version of the sheer, burgundy Cascading Ruffle Gown ($1,895) ended up on the infamous Shein, selling for $26.
Photos: Shein (L), Courtesy of Mirror Palais (R)
Describing himself as a digitally native person, Gaia sees his social media as a means to many ends: exposure, community, experimenting and a call to action. Through informative videos, the designer’s goal is to encourage people to shop vintage or secondhand instead of buying from fast fashion sites. “Even if just one person is inspired to do that, I feel I’ve succeeded in getting my message out there,” he tells Fashionista.
As for chasing down copycats, it’s a losing game. Gaia knows he can’t rewrite the playbook of big fast-fashion corporations or alter the fundamentals of capitalism. What he can do, however, is use his platform to spark conversations, planting questions about the way we consume.
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“This isn’t about money or convincing people to shop with me instead of fast fashion,” says the designer. It’s about encouraging people to value the time and the hard work “that goes into making something unique, something beautiful,” while simultaneously standing up to the fast-fashion industry — a system that exploits workers under poor conditions and inflicts significant environmental harm.
Mirror Palais’ production process is different from that of most contemporary brands. “I make all of my prototypes in-house. We don’t send tech packs out to factories to create styles. Whenever we’re creating something new, we create it here in New York first, perfect it and develop it,” Gaia explains. “It’s a more classical way of working. It’s a slower way of working.”
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It’s his way of working. With a decade-long career as a fashion stylist and a previous clothing business called Rosemilk under his belt, Gaia’s journey has been nothing short of thoughtful. He always dreamt of having his own label. Growing up in Queens, NY, Gaia would pay close attention to the clothes he saw in movies, draw sketches inspired by his favorite anime series “Sailor Moon” and explore his mother’s closet full of sexy, beachy ’80s fashion like a kid in a candy shop.
In 2019, while working on the Mirror Palais project, Gaia took things one step at a time, yet he always pushed himself creatively. His first shoot took place in Rio de Janeiro, his mom’s hometown. Without much of a plan, he visited his family with his beachwear samples in his bag, certain that the beautiful Rio landscapes would go well with his designs. It was all very spontaneous — he met a girl on the beach and asked her to model for him alongside the sister of someone he knew via Instagram. By the end of the day, Gaia had put together a campaign rooted in nostalgia, sensuality and elegance, fully embodying the charm of “Garota de Ipanema” (The Girl from Ipanema).
In the fall of 2019, Mirror Palais debuted its first collection. With the support of his influencer friends and the countless connections that the TikTok and Instagram algorithms can foster, the label quickly garnered a following. Just like that, what was once a dream became a reality.
Photo: Courtesy of Mirror Palais
Mirror Palais soon evolved from a niche brand into a viral success. Since his first shoot, Gaia has continued drawing on Latin American culture, including old-world Catholicism and his jeitinho brasileiro (Brazilian way of being), weaving in references from albums like “Gabriela” and “Orfeu Negro” to films like “City of God.” It’s no surprise, then, that Mirror Palais resonated so deeply with the Latin American community, which has long yearned to see itself reflected on fashion’s global stage.
Inevitably, with its religious iconography, unapologetically feminine aesthetic and romantic silhouettes, Mirror Palais has captivated stars like Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa, Emily Ratajkowski and Sabrina Carpenter — alongside a devoted younger audience whose loyalty fills Gaia with profound gratitude. His loyal fan base has a deep grasp of the label’s aesthetic. Whenever a creator or retailer features copies of Gaia’s designs, his followers loop him in and passionately stand up for him in the comment sections.
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Though Mirror Palais has plenty of supporters who praise Gaia for sharing the realities of building an indie fashion brand amid a rampant dupe culture, others aren’t thrilled to see him use his social media platform to advocate for his ideas. In fact, many blame him, stating that his designs wouldn’t be copied elsewhere if they were more affordable. Over time, Gaia learned to become numb to the criticism — haters are going to hate — and decided he wouldn’t lose sleep over it. “It’s just part of how I exist now,” he says.
Of course, finding his ideas on fast-fashion sites frustrates the designer. Perhaps even more frustrating is the fashion industry’s lack of support for emerging talent. “The industry supports clout, money and fame,” he explains. “I have a certain amount of fame associated with my brand. I receive some support, but other genuinely creative designers without the platform I have don’t get the support they need from the industry.”
Photo: Albert Urso/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows
Gaia cites New York Fashion Week as a perfect example of the industry’s challenging environment for small designers: He’s participated in the past, but chose to sit out this season. The costs, he says, are simply too much. “I think of all the small designers striving to make a name for themselves,” he reflects. “They show up, pour everything into participating, and still can’t afford it. Their businesses falter because they’re trying to chase what the industry has declared the gold standard for how a fashion designer should present themselves.”
The designer has long since abandoned the idea of forcing himself into an industry box. He would rather focus on running his business and keeping “that dream of genuine creativity alive” than stage an expensive runway show. Gaia simply needs to create; it’s as vital to him as air.
Photo: Courtesy of Mirror Palais
“I have so much inside of me that I need to get out because it’s what drives me,” he explains passionately. “We feed each other in a loop of me feeling endlessly creative, and the women who are inspired by me.”
Ultimately, Gaia doesn’t want to be remembered for staging flashy events or inspiring blatant copycats. “I want to be remembered for creating beauty in the world,” he concludes. “That’s really all I’m trying to do.”
Source: Fashionista.com
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