When keffiyehs became popular in the late 2000s, experts made a clear distinction between the wearing of a genuine scarf, and a fake made in China. Palestinian independence activists and socialists denounced the wearing of scarves not made in Palestine as a form of cultural appropriation, but encouraged fellow Muslims and progressively minded non-Muslim students to buy shemaghs made in the Herbawi factory to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people and improve the economy of the West Bank. In 2017, Topshop caused controversy by selling Chinese-made playsuits that imitated the pattern of the keffiyeh.