Fashion trends throughout the years come and go, but as of the middle of 2020, the “strawberry dress” seems to be one of the most popular pieces. 

The first main appearance of the pink, sparkly, strawberry decorated dress was when Tess Holliday wore it to the 2020 Grammy Awards ceremony in January. That being said, the huge surge in popularity didn’t occur until around July. The dress had an influx of admirers because of the app TikTok, in which people wore the dress in their “cottagecore” and “aesthetic” inspired videos. This caused many people to fall in love with the dress. 

The creator of the strawberry dress is Lirika Matoshi. Lirika Matoshi is a New York based brand that works from two factories, one in New York and a second factory in Kosovo. Lirika Matoshi, who grew up in Kosovo, started her namesake brand in 2016 after moving to New York. The brand started small with handmade necklaces, but soon gained traction when her embellished and glitter-covered tights, socks, and blouses rose in popularity across social media platforms. 

Lirika’s sister, Teuta Matoshi, was a big inspiration to Lirika regarding her start in fashion. The two now work together, as well as with a 100% women-run team across their two factories. Lirika Matoshi uses luxury fabric for all their clothes, they’re open to customization requests for any of their pieces, and they ship worldwide. 

A lot of effort was put into the design and creation of the “Strawberry Midi Dress,” which is likely the case for any other thought–through, creative, well-made item. This is of course going to result in a hefty price tag. The strawberry dress, being sold for $490, turned a lot of people away and complaints were made about this price. 

In response to high prices, what has now been normalized is buying knock-off products. This is what happened to Lirika Matoshi, as many considerably larger fast-fashion companies started producing cheaper replicas of Lirika’s design. A problem not many people seem to consider is the art theft behind this idea. Stealing somebody else’s design and hard work for profit is very unethical. One would be supporting this practice by buying knock-off products, especially when they are a replica of a product made by smaller, ethical business such as Lirika Matoshi. 

Sadly, the hype around this dress not only made Lirika’s sales rise, but many others as well. Many fans of the strawberry dress opted for the cheaper route, buying replicas of Lirika’s dress from unethical companies with bad working conditions and worse quality. 

In the end, you must reassess your morals. Is looking cute in a pink sparkly dress for less money worth supporting a company with unethical values? Or would you rather support the original artist and producer, a brand with good practices and better quality, yet spend a decent sum of money? If you chose the former, do you really need the strawberry dress?