The fast-fashion brand Zara is facing criticism for allegedly copying the designs of Tuesday Bassen, an independent artist based in Los Angeles.
Bassen, an illustrator and designer, posted a side-by-side comparison of her pin designs next to Zara’s. “
You know what? Sometimes it sucks to be an artist because companies like @zara consistently rip you off and deny it,” she wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night.
Bassen has worked with Playboy, the New Yorker, the United Nations, Nike, adidas and others, according to her website. This was her first interaction with Zara, she said in an email to the Guardian.
Bassen said she first found out about the similarities from her fans, who amount to more than 100,000 followers on Instagram. She took action after seeing a design resembling her Girls Pennant in person.
The artist contacted Zara with a lawyer about the supposed copies.
According to Bassen’s posts, she was told that her designs were not distinctive enough to be associated with her and that notifications about the copies amounted to a “handful of complaints” in comparison with the monthly traffic on Zara and Bershka, a store owned by the same parent company.
Bassen is not the only artist whose work has seemingly been lifted by Zara. Adam J Kurtz, Bassen’s friend and a fellow designer, compiled an image comparing the work of 12 independent artists with near-identical products on Zara’s website — including his own. The pieces he included in his graphic were found on Zara’s site in June and July, he said in a phone interview. He also listed the products under the heading “Shop the Stolen Art” on his personal website.
In the past, Zara has been criticised for its designs’ similarities to high fashion brands such as Celine.
Luxury shoe brand Christian Louboutin once sued Zara for selling red-soled shoes — the company’s signature.
Zara did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
However, a representative of Zara’s parent company, Inditex, told BuzzFeed that the company “respects any third party’s creativity and takes all claims concerning third party intellectual property rights very seriously”.
“On receiving these allegations, the relevant items were immediately suspended from sale and an investigation opened,” the representative said.
“In parallel, Inditex’s legal team also contacted Tuesday Bassen’s lawyers to clarify and resolve the situation. Inditex has more than 600 designers in house that create more than 50,000 designs a year, it has the highest respect towards each individual’s creativity and will investigate this specific case to its end.”
Zara is not the only company that has come under fire for supposedly stealing designs. Brands such as Urban Outfitters and Forever 21 have been accused more than once.
Kurtz said instances of copying amount to laziness, as these independent brands aren’t so small that bigger companies can’t form partnerships with them. He pointed out that Urban Outfitters has improved and now carries his work, Bassen’s and several other independent creators’.
“Mistakes do happen and big companies are made up of individual people,” Kurtz said. “But if it happens a dozen times in one season, that’s intentional.”
Bassen said she spoke up about the similar designs out of frustration. “They were trying to bully me out of my rightful compensation and I wanted people to know what happens when small artists try to challenge the giant companies that take advantage of them,” she said.
Kurtz noted that independent artists cannot often speak out against these mega companies. “It’s David versus Goliath the whole way,” he said.
“When you’re doing this on nights and weekends or you’re trying to make this full-time creative thing work — which is a huge scary risk — it’s extremely disheartening,”
Kurtz said of repeated creative theft. “It tells us that our work is worth nothing.”
