I noticed a couple weeks ago that people were coming over to Hetterson journal from a site on livejournal, I clicked to visit the site and lo and behold there was one of my dresses…only it wasn’t. This company had copied my dress. The CO said they “got the inspiration for this piece (from my blog) by surfing the internet late one night” It’s not “inspiration” if it’s an obvious copy. Then they went on to say that they “searched high and low (for my dress), but it was completely sold out at the time, despite the whopping price tag of USD$200” but, it gets even better “I fell in love with this piece so much and I just had to bring it to you ladies, in our own simple, chic, affordable style. Contacted my manufacturers and the rest is history” I really had no idea what to do. The fact that they copied my dress and were proudly displaying the fact, left me completely snacker-schnuckled. I emailed the people behind this and they claimed that they “came up with my own version of it, which I believe you already saw. I really wanted a piece for myself and tried to make it look different from yours” It was so obviously a copy right down to the color. After I requested they take it all down, they went on to say: “I would like to apologize sincerely for this misunderstanding, and seek your kind understanding that I will not be able to take down our own version, as we already have ready stocks for them.” Ready stock that should have never been manufactured. The whole email was full of this smooth, apologetic BS, all they were really saying was that they didn’t care that they copied my design and were going to sell the knockoff anyways. The cherry on top was that they used the original image I took of my dress as the sneak peek on their twitter/FB for their knock off. My image used to promote their knockoff, I mean really… the nerve.
After my first email they removed all content relating to Hetterson but kept the dress up (only then it looked like they just came up with it on their own)- luckily I had already printed all the pages before they took the Hetterson content down. After my second email they took down the page and locked down their twitter account, FB page, etc. I realize that despite taking down the images of their copycat dress on their public livejournal page they are probably still selling it via facebook and email. Yes, that does still make me mad, but really, there is very little I can do about it now.
I put so much work and love into my designs. Which can take me anywhere from a week to months to perfect, and for someone to just take a photo off my blog, bring it to their manufacturer and have it copied for their own profit…makes me sick (bleeeech). Judging by their cheap synthetic materials and manufacturing I guess they weren’t "inspired" to copy my sustainable design/manufacturing ethic, hahaha.
Even though clothing designs cannot be copyrighted, that doesn’t mean its okay to copy them!!!
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I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, The sun is finally out in Oregon! I'm hoping to take a walk and catch a few rays, but I'll most likely just end up finishing the last few orders and battling my email box. The shop will be opening by the end of next week. Alot of items are currently out-of-stock (out of materials, more are on the way). But there will still be Brocius + Saturday dresses and Crenelle sweaters. I'm debating making some changes to how the shop works, but we'll see. If I do it will be addressed next week. Bye for now!