Cult Aussie label Dyspnea is accusing fast fashion chain store Glassons of ripping off one of its most popular designs.
Dyspnea, which was started four years ago by two best friends, have been selling the Heart Breaker bodysuit for about a year and half.
“It’s our best-seller,” co-founder and designer Jameen Zalfen told PEDESTRIAN.TV. “It’s our bread-and-butter, [the sales] keep us running.”
However, it’s remarkably similar to a bodysuit about to drop on the Glassons website. It’s not available online yet, but the Glassons Instagram account shared some behind-the-scenes content from the Byron Bay shoot.
Jameen says she was alerted to the other design when half a dozen Dsypnea fans sent her screenshots.
“It isn’t the first time we’ve had a design ripped off, but it is the first time it’s been so very, very obvious,” she said. “It’s frustrating because [Glassons] is going to undercut us for quite a lot, these bodysuits will be going for around $79 I’d guess, and ours are $189.”
She says it could affect their sales dramatically, particularly as both Dyspnea and Glassons are marketing their respective bodysuits as potential Splendour in the Grass outfits.
“I just want to pull [Glassons] up on it because I wouldn’t want it to look like we don’t care, and then we get trodden over,” she said. “We are a small independent label and we’re trying so hard, and you’ve got big fast fashion companies and they take screenshots of our Instagram account and they’ll just send it to their designers, and say, do that.
“I’ve had it, I’m so over this, they think they can get away with anything.”
It’s not the first time major fashion chains have been accused of ripping off smaller designers. Gorman was accused in August last year of ripping off Melbourne designers Emily Green and Kirra Jamison, and Zara has been accused of ripping off pin designs from no less than 42 indie designers.
P.TV reached out to Hallenstein Glasson, the New Zealand company that owns Glassons, but it did not return requests for comment by the time this story was published.
FWIW, if you want to support the designers themselves, new Heart Breaker bodysuits are dropping real soon!
Photo: Dyspnea; Glassons / Instagram.
