When Los Angeles based visual artist Tuesday Bassen noticed that her original artwork was being stolen by the fashion brand Zara for its designs, she put up a list of her stolen works on the social media.
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Bassen said that Zara stands accused to stealing the work of a bunch of small brands, including Pity Party Corporation, Rosehound Apparel, and Mokuyobi Threads, not to mention other artists.
She said that she had been virtually silent on the issue until yesterday, when she received a letter from Zara’s lawyers that claims her work is “too simple” to defend and that, due to her indie status (90K+ followers on Instagram compared to Zara’s 90 million customers worldwide), her claims have been rejected.
Which is exactly why Tuesday Bassen, whose clients have included Nike and Adidas, has called out the brand on Twitter for what she calls “theft” of her art work.
The artist’s designs were for pins and iron on patches, with Zara’s similar products all iron on patches.
We’ve reached out to Zara for comment, but they haven’t got back to us yet. Artist Adam J Kurtz says in a series of tweets that “while Tuesday’s been hit hardest they’ve also ripped off a half-dozen other artists this summer”. She took to her Twitter and Instagram to share her side of things, explaining that while she’s been “pretty quiet” about what was going on until now, Zara’s response to her claims has pushed her to speak up.
“I felt incredibly disheartened that Zara essentially said, ‘We’re a giant corporation and you’re an independent artist, so you have no base and can’t do anything because comparatively no one knows about you.'”, Tuesday told The Fashion Law.
“Inditex has the utmost respect for the individual creativity of all artists and designers and takes all claims concerning third-party intellectual property rights very seriously”, they said.
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“[Inditex] immediately opened an investigation into the matter and suspended the relevant items from sale”. “Inditex’s legal team is also in contact with Tuesday Bassen’s lawyers to clarify and resolve the situation as swiftly as possible”. “It tells us that our work is worth nothing”.
