When Will The Fast Fashion's Infringement Come To Rest?

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Is there any doubt about how many styles can be updated every week besides "cheap" and "nice looking"? Why are they so cheap?

In recent days, the topic of #boycottzara (boycott Zara) on Twitter and Instagram suddenly may be able to let you notice these two questions.

As of July 27th at 4 in the morning, according to the real-time data monitored by keyhole.com, a social media listening tool, the number of users participating in the discussion on two social platforms reached 592, 676 posts were posted, and the impact coverage covered nearly 1 million 770 thousand people, resulting in an impression (impressions) of about 2 million 60 thousand.

The related topics also include: #zaraarttheft (Zara art theft), #shoparttheft (purchase stolen art) and #supporttuesdaybassen (support Tuesday Bassen).

In July 19th, the 26 year old Losangeles independence.

Tuesday Bassen sent a photo on Twitter.

This is a comparison map, on the left is her brooch design, on the right is a brooch in the Zara 2016 summer series.

The two looked almost the same.

In the tweets, Bassen wrote, "do you know? Sometimes it's really hard to be an artist, because companies like @zara will steal your work and deny it."

According to the description of Bassen's personal website, she worked with Playboy, New York guest, United Nations, Nike and Adidas before, but had nothing to do with Zara. Until more than 100 fans came to the news that they saw 3 similar designs in the new series of Zara.

This article does not cause much concern.

But the next day, she released a follow-up event on the Instagram account with 100 thousand fans.

According to her description, she commissioned a lawyer to contact Zara, citing similar cases cited by fans, but the company replied as follows:

"...

We refuse your complaint, for the reasons mentioned above: the design of your client is not unique. It is hard to imagine how many people in the world will associate it with Tuesday Bassen.

We have fully understood the views put forward by the third party, but we still adhere to our ideas.

Finally, please note that these claims have only sparked a number of complaints. You know, millions of people around the world browse these two websites each month (the average monthly traffic volume of Zara last year is 98 million, Bershka is 15 million), and these complaints are obviously outnumbed by these figures.

Bassen thinks that in addition to denying plagiarism, the most indignant thing is to imply that "you are not as famous as Zara, so the ownership of the design is not yours."

Soon, Adam J. Kurtz, an illustrator in New York, also came out and opened a website called shoparttehft.com, calling on designers who had similar experiences to show the contrast drawings and to link them with the direct purchase links of their original works.

By the time of the press release, the website has gathered more than 20 designers' 42 works; besides Zara, there are also Bershka, Pull&Bear and Stradivarius Inditex.

Brand.

Kurtz said in an interview with Huffington Post: "we only hope Zara will admit her mistake, even if it may push the responsibility to foreign suppliers or manipulate it in any other way."

In the past 1 years, 42 cases of obvious plagiarism have never been "blunders". They should be given honor and respect to artists or even anyone.

Supporting independent artists is supposed to be a cool brand activity, but this time, it will leave an accusation of copyright infringement on the company's history.

The number of cases displayed on shoparttehft.com has also attracted more netizens to pay attention to this issue. The topic of Twitter and so on such as #boycottzara was born, and the number of participants continued to increase.

Under Zara's Twitter and Instagram accounts, most of the most recent posts are accusations of infringement.

In each block, the larger picture is the original designer's work. The black bar is the designer's name, and the small circle in the lower right corner is the merchandise sold by Zara.

Zara official Twitter account July 19th netizens commentary

The media contacted Zara on the matter, but the company did not reply.

From July 19th to the time of publication, Zara's Twitter official account is still promoting its own 2016 autumn and winter series with a daily frequency, playing its advertising films for women's wear, men's wear and children's wear products respectively.

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However, a representative of Zara's parent company Inditex contacted Buzzed:

"...

The company respects the creativity of any third party and attaches great importance to the third party's claim for intellectual property rights.

After receiving the accusation, the relevant commodities have been suspended immediately, and the investigation has also started.

Meanwhile, Inditex's legal team contacted Tuesday Bassen's lawyer to clarify and solve the problem.

Inditex owns more than 600 designs, creating 5 million pieces per year.

The company holds the highest respect for every individual's creativity, and will take a thorough look at this matter.

Ironically, last year, the owner of Inditex Amancio Ortega briefly exceeded Bill Gates to become the world's richest man.

The list of Forbes 2016 Global 2000 will also be listed as one of Zara's largest retail companies in the world.

Fast fashion brands have never been absent from plagiarism accusations. Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, Nasty Gal, and so on are all past cases.

They even plagiarize each other, such as a canvas bag made by Forever 21, but only slightly changed the color of the same package of H&M.

Above: a mini skirt of UO, below is an artist's work on Society6.

Left: Forever 21, right: H&M

An interesting contrast, however, is that the response of fast fashion brands and general high fashion brands to plagiarism is totally different.

The latter usually takes remedial measures quickly, such as formal apology, withdrawal of products from the series, or even the whole series.

In the 2016 early autumn series released last month by 12 Chanel in Rome, Fair Isle sweater was accused of plagiarism by designer Mati Venrillon.

After the incident, Chanel immediately thanked the designer, apologized publicly, and offered to share some of his income with Ventrillon.

Fast fashion brands often refuse to respond, and there are few remedies.

Some may even be rude. For example, the founder of Nasty Gal, Sophia Amoruso Amoruso, responded to an independent Bracelet designer, Saylor Rose:

"Forgive us for not having heard of you...

Congratulations on your being a Shanzhai.

This is adult ceremony.

This is a good promotion for anonymous.

How did we know that this bracelet was invented by the @saylorrose?

We can't focus on every single mom on Etsy. "

The reason for this is that the business mode of fast fashion brand determines that it is not easy to be damaged by plagiarism because of its high fashion brand.

Zara are not famous for their product quality and originality. The reason why they are concerned is that people can buy large imitation copies here cheaply.

Many consumers also consume under the circumstances of being informed.

If you respond to the designer's accusations one by one, there will be no more products left in these brands' warehouses.

As for why there are few similar cases of infringement in court, there are at least two reasons: in order to save money and time cost, fast fashion brands tend to spend a small amount of money before appealing.

In addition, many complaints are simply not settled because of the shocking amount.

It took me 2000 dollars to find a lawyer to send a letter to Zara to quit and stop (cease and desist).

Bassen said, "I want to say that just this first step has baffled many artists, most of whom can't afford to pay 2000 dollars."

Zara knows this.