Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
We all have our boundaries when it comes to biting a person’s designs:
- Perhaps you think inspiration from another’s work is all right,
- Or maybe say, “It’s okay to copy it for myself, but I wouldn’t sell it,”
- You could believe it’s okay to rip off high end designers to make fashion accessible,
- And some even think that it’s okay to copy another’s work and sell it (without putting an original idea in to it).
But what about the person who “steals” a design and sells it alongside the original designer’s pieces? Or worse, does so without always even crediting the original designer’s pieces that ARE being sold? How about when it’s a small & independent business ripping off another small & independent business?
Unique Vintage is one of Trashy Diva’s largest wholesale clothing buyers, particularly in their cotton dress line. While dresses at Trashy Diva have been inspired by and based on original 1940s patterns, owner & designer Candice Gwinn has extensively modified creating the modern and yet classic looks that we love.
Imagine my surprise when I hear via Miss Malaprop (former Trashy girl herself) that the Trashy Diva manager was confronted by an excited customer, eager to see that Trashy Diva had designed new prints. The customer handed over a page printed out with a black dress with white polka dots. A gown in this pattern is NOT available for sale through Trashy Diva. Upon further investigation, the staff at Trashy Diva discovered that there were at least three counterfeit products being sold along side their own.
The Problems:
1. Unique Vintage is falsifying their own garments by using the same title, price point, and description to describe their knock-offs as the Trashy Diva Garments.
2. Unique Vintage is not distinguishing between the Trashy Diva versions of the dresses and their own knock-offs.
3. Unique Vintage is misleading and tricking their customers in to believing they are buying the high quality of a Trashy Diva garment, and instead receiving poor imitations.
4. Unique Vintage does not even designate Trashy Diva as a designer to search by, despite selling more than 5 different dresses.
5. Unique Vintage does not deny allegations that they knocked off the Trashy Diva dress entirely, but rather gets hostile and angry at those who confront them.
In reaction to this, Trashy Diva has pulled their Trixie dress from all of their wholesellers, and is now offering it on their website for THE LOW COST OF $34. That’s half off their original cost, and half off the knock off cost! I can say with all honesty, that’s not a huge mark-up from their own wholesale costs of production.
For more information:
Trashy Diva’s Blog Post
Miss Malaprop
Miss Malaprop for StyleDash
The Coveted’s Coverage
ETA: Humid City: this is an AMAZING post where they interviewed Veronica (Trashy Girl and performer) and manager Angie, along with trying in efforts to get in touch with Katie from Unique Vintage. Apparently she still refuses to talk, but has no problem emailing blogs to complain about slander.
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Now it’s all over the interwebs and she is PISSED. Styledash got an angry email from her this morning calling the post there slanderous. Bah, whatever, it’s not slander if you’re the one in the wrong in the first place and it’s all true.
She’s probably just sick of getting calls about it. This post is brilliant BTW:
http://humidcity.com/2008/07/14/dress/
Thanks for the Humid City post, Mal! It is TOTALLY brilliant, and I appreciate that they went the extra miles to talk to people.
And you know what? Unique SHOULD be pissed. Katie fucked up (for lack of better word) by refusing to talk to people, issue a press release, and hanging up on them. They messed up, bad, and they’re feeling the repurcussions of bad karma.
This goes to show, for all those people who say, “It’s fashion, it happens, be flattered and get over it.” NO. You do not have to take it because it’s fashion, you have a right to protect your assets, business, livelihood, and artistic integrity. She got caught, and she’s finding out the hard way what brand loyalty means and that people do have a sense of ethical pride.
Wow…that’s something. I really don’t know what to say. This is what I know: if I had worked hard, and put all of my creative energies toward a design, I would only hope that they could remain my own. To steal someone’s brand is wrong, and penalties should come with that.
Since I heard about this (I think on Only Shallow, but not as through as yours), and since I had been considering buying from them, I went ahead and splurged on two dresses! Afterall, the real site deserves the sales. I think they’re fantastic and I can’t wait till mine arrive!
Scandalous behavior!
That is truly horrible behaviour. I hope Unique Vintage understands what a nasty thing they have done.
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