Everyone knows that plagiarism is bad and unacceptable, but it’s a maj problem in the fashion industry.
There’s plenty of designers who take inspiration from other clothes they’ve seen elsewhere, and paying homage is a standard practice. But plagiarism in its purest form, straight up copying someone else’s design, is not cool at all.
It’s detrimental to the industry as a whole, and leads to the domination of fast fashion in a world that fundamentally needs unique, talented visionaries to be able to continue their work both creatively and financially.
The team at Mother & Father PR in Sydney know this all too well, and they have a no-holds-barred approach to it. If they see someone they believe is completely copying one of labels under their wing, they’ll fuckin’ tell it to you straight.
Example numero uno – their latest Instagram post.
They took a Melbourne designer called Zian Couture to task, accusing them of allegedly plagiarising a design from a label they look after, Perth-born Zhivago.
And by took them to task, we mean TOOK. THEM. TO. TASK.
Seriously, you gotta read their caption:
“NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!As an agency, MFPR is at the coalface of Australian fashion, everyday we counsel clients who are battling to keep their dreams and their businesses alive. We witness a never-ending conga-line of shifty arseholes who are squeezing the lifeblood from the Australian design community.So when we see shit like this, it begs the question, how much more blood can be drawn (from independent designers) before we have no industry left? All it would take is a few minor changes to IP laws and independent Australian designers would have greater protection.@ziancouture, you are trying to pass yourselves off as designers, when are in fact, you are nothing more than than a wet shit and no matter how hard you wipe, you’ll be never clean.So to all the cock-juggling thunder c#nts like #ZianCouture, consider this your notice…MFPR is about to summon forth a shitstorm of biblical pain and suffering on your swamp asses!”
That term one more time, for the people in the back, was “cock-juggling thunder cunts”. Which is definitely a quote from ‘Blade: Trinity’, but absolutely bloody huge nonetheless. Huge.
The company finished off the provocative post by tagging #ProtectAustralianDesign and #DontBuyFakes, in order to remind their audience that while the post is written with tongue firmly in cheek, it holds an important reason behind it.
PEDESTRIAN.TV spoke to MFPR director Matthew Jordan, who told us exactly why they posted what they did, how they did:
“The post originated from an overwhelming feeling of complete frustration, sometimes I feel like I’m screaming into the abyss… In Australia there are massive problems with IP protection for designers and it seems like no one is willing to step-up and give independent designers a fighting chance by changing the laws.This issue touches every designer working in the creative industries, not just fashion. It’s also important to note that once anything designer is replicated, it immediately loses it’s ticketed value.I literally deal with [this] every week, it’s not always ZHIVAGO (point in case, I stumbled across another client who appears to have had their IP plagiarised this morning on IG), but a lot of the time it is and while we lawyer up, it’s an expensive and time consuming process to shut these stores/labels down. We’ve never publicly drawn attention to this problem and I’ll admit, I kinda went a little William Foster yesterday, but if my caustic forked tongue can kick-start a dialogue about this problem, then good… it’s long overdue… or this is wishful thinking? “
V. FAIR.
But regardless, “you are nothing more than than a wet shit and no matter how hard you wipe, you’ll be never clean” is possibly one of the greatest, most hard-hitting, ‘Real Housewives‘-esque insult we’ve ever heard.
We’re probably gonna plagiarise it from you, Matt. Hope that cool fam.
We contacted Zian Couture for comment, but did not receive a response at time of writing.
Source: Instagram / @mf_pr.
