Zara, I Love You but I Hate You?

Image from @tuesdaybassen Instagram.

Bassen is an independent illustrator and designer based in LA. With over 100k Instagram followers, she was notified of the copying from her fans. The image above is where Bassen has broken silent and posted the side by side comparison of her work and then Zara’s copy. She contacted Zara with a lawyer, and the response from the big corporate was that they rejected her claims because of the ‘lack of distinctiveness’. It is very disheartening. I come from a background of creativity and art, and feel her pain. Bassen has mentioned how so much money was thrown into just having a lawyer. Especially trying to battle it out with a big fashion-brand like Zara, as they claim average of ‘98000.000’ visit a month on their website compared to the small known artist.

Zara has been criticised before of similar designs to Celine, and luxury shoe brand Christian Louboutin have sued them for selling their signature red-soles. My views on this is that these companies have the money, they are able to protect their signature style such as Louboutin. Also, High-end luxury fashion is very expensive to afford for the big number of the population, therefore retail brands coming out with similar versions with small tweaks is a way for common consumers to afford. Fashion is forever changing, and fast fashion which in way can’t be helped.




Reference: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/jul/21/zara-accused-copying-artist-designs-fashion
https://www.instagram.com/tuesdaybassen/
https://twitter.com/adamjk/status/755782747206148100/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw