Good morning. A $13 half-zip Costco sweatshirt is at the centre of a 49-page lawsuit from Lululemon – more on that below, along with the Sean (Diddy) Combs verdict and the Dalai Lama’s succession plan. But first:

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Two years ago, Lululemon decided the cheap knockoff leggings were getting out of control. No fewer than a dozen “dupes” – short for duplicates – of its popular Align pants could be found on Amazon, while over on TikTok, #LululemonDupes had hit 180 million views. So the Canadian company held a “dupe swap” in L.A.’s Century City Mall, inviting people to trade their faux Aligns for a free pair of the genuine article.

Lululemon doled out US$98,000 worth of leggings in a weekend, half of them to new customers, and declared the swap a resounding success. “Dupes are going to happen,” Lululemon’s chief brand officer, Nikki Neuburger, told Fast Company at the time. “Let’s not fight it, let’s not arm wrestle. Let’s have some fun with it.”

Well, the fun’s over, folks. On Friday, Lululemon filed a 49-page lawsuit against Costco in U.S. federal court, accusing the big-box retailer of selling “confusingly similar” knockoffs of its Scuba sweatshirt, Define jacket and men’s ABC pants. (ABC, I learned, stands for Anti-Ball Crushing, and that acronym is trademarked.) The suit alleges these products unlawfully trade on Lululemon’s reputation, goodwill and “sweat equity.” They certainly cost considerably less: While a Scuba Funnel-Neck Half Zip retails for $128, a very similar style at Costco will set you back about 13 bucks.

The lawsuit arrives during a tough stretch for the athleisure brand. In early June, Lululemon cut its annual profit forecast, warning that U.S. tariffs would likely translate to higher costs. The company’s share price tumbled 23 per cent. Two weeks later, it announced that roughly 150 people would lose their jobs in an organizational restructuring. Shares are now down 37 per cent for the year.

In its filing last week, Lululemon asked for unspecified monetary damages from Costco in order to recover profits lost to the clothing dupes. It’ll be a hard sell: Unlike music, literature and art, fashion receives little protection under U.S. copyright law, and all sorts of designers have unsuccessfully sued over pretty blatant knockoffs. Costco’s performance pants definitely resemble Lululemon’s ABC bestseller – a recent Wirecutter review noted “they looked almost identical.” But proving an item has been copied isn’t enough to win in court. You need to show that the knockoff fooled people into thinking it was the real deal.

Lululemon is attempting to make exactly that case against Costco, arguing that “one of the purposes of selling ‘dupes’ is to confuse consumers” into believing they’re purchasing “authentic products when they are not.” It’s hard, though, to imagine any person in 2025 stumbling upon a $13 half-zip and mistaking it for a Lululemon sweatshirt 10 times the price. Far more likely, they’ve sought out that Costco dupe on the express recommendation of a TikTok video or Reddit thread or Washington Post article.

And that’s where Lululemon’s lawsuit runs up against a fundamental misunderstanding of current dupe culture: The knockoff is the point. Only a few years ago, people might have hoped their faux designer duds could pass undetected in a crowd. Now, a decent dupe represents its own status symbol – and younger shoppers in particular are racing to social media to brag loudly about their finds. Influencers have built up massive followings peddling dupes for everything from skin care and makeup to electronics and Taco Bell’s Crunchwrap Supreme.

Perhaps, then, Lululemon should follow the lead of its 2023 self, when the company was content to have some fun with knockoff leggings. Or maybe there’s another example to take from that same year. After dropping a lawsuit against Peloton for selling what it considered copycat workout attire, Lululemon announced that the two fitness giants would instead partner on branded clothes. It wasn’t a bad move. As I always say, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em (trademark pending).

The Dalai Lama, who turns 90 on Sunday, said that his successor will be identified by a Tibetan exile group – in a direct challenge to Beijing, which insists that only the Chinese government can choose the future leader of Tibetan Buddhism. Read more here about how the succession battle might play out.

At home: Two outcasts in Alberta’s legislature have banded together to form a new provincial party under the old Progressive Conservative banner.

Abroad: One year in as British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer