Adventures in Copyright, Shopping
Benetton Knocks off Alber’s Pretty Face
By Lauren Sherman
Sometimes, middle-of-the-road brands take “inspiration” from big name designers. Other times, they steal, plain and simple. This is one of those times.
On a recent trip abroad we spied this green t-shirt at United Colors of Benetton, a place where you don’t typically find pieces ripped from the Lanvin look book. Yet that’s exactly what we found–a nearly identical replica of Lanvin’s own tank, for which designer Alber Elbaz created a one-of-a-kind sketch.
This isn’t the first time Elbaz’s work has been “reinterpreted,” as a reader kindly pointed out. Nearly a year ago, our friends at Forever 21 had a similar idea.
It’s one thing to snag a sleeve shape here and a skirt ruffle there, but to blatantly copy an actual piece of art? Unforgivable.






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don't forget about this:
http://fashionista.com/2009/05/adventures-in-co…
Yikes–I'll add in now!
In Zara today – the celine skirt is copied down to every detail, color, leather trim, everything. Didn't have my bberry to take a picture! (But, if you're around a Zara, they have a short A-line olive leather skirt that arguably just takes “inspiration” from the collection . . . )
there's a great attention to the classic white t-shirt, and generally speaking monocrhome tees with easy printings on the whole garment – cool and chic! ;)
We have it–yes–craziness!
Well,I do not agree with this kind of things, because it is almost like stealing something,so it's not right.
It is almost laughable how they attempt to make it just a “little” different. The eyes looking left, the bow in a different position, and a different color for the shirt. This one is straight from the “rip-off” other designer division of Benetton.
What are you talking about, they're totally different. In the Lanvin shirt, the girl is looking to the right. In the Benetton shirt, the girl is looking to the left.
Case closed.
Please, anyone elitist enough to put out a $1,000 tshirt deserves to be ripped off.
why can't they be just….original?! that will be for sure a bigger succes than…all this copy-paste thingie…
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My feelings exactly!!!
This is not that original of a shirt. Please. It's a face. Everyone has done a face tee.
I am so ashamed to admit but I used to do this myself when I was designing at a wholesale accessories company. They would literally send us out to go buy things and rip the designs and sometimes return them afterward. Just changing enough to avoid a suit and to make sure it could actually be constructed in the factories in China. I eventually quit as I could not in good faith go on, because I was ripping off designers I loved and admired.
ever heard of the phrase 'there is nothing new under the sun?'