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Unofficial beauty and fashion watchdogs are hot on copycats' trails
The beauty and fashion Industry has watchdogs: Instagram accounts like Diet Prada or Estée Laundry are public voices taking a stand for social issues such as diversity, equality and proper behavior.
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While it is difficult to prove whether alleged copycat is plagiarism or simply taking inspiration, the practice is unethical although not always deemed illegal. (Shutterstock/pedrosek)
T
he beauty and fashion Industry has watchdogs: Instagram accounts like Diet Prada or Estée Laundry are public voices taking a stand for social issues such as diversity, equality and proper behavior. They name and shame brands and designers who commit plagiarism and other unethical practices.
According to The Guardian, Estée Laundry, which describes itself as a small beauty collective that brings transparency, honesty and equality to the beauty industry, is run by a group of people in a variety of places.
“In the age of Instagram, where there are no secrets, people expect authenticity and honesty from brands,” Estée Laundry told The Guardian, as they watch the beauty industry closely to reveal copycat behavior, cultural appropriation or lack of diversity among major brands.
More than 60,000 people are said to follow the beauty watchdog on Instagram, including several beauty editors, PR practitioners and even Victoria Beckham.
Apart from calling out products alleged to be the result of plagiarism, culturally insensitive or using misleading advertising, Estée Laundry also encourages its community to share honest opinions on trending products and feature flattering images of people of different ages, sizes and racial backgrounds.
While the beauty watchdogs are represented by Estée Laundry, the fashion industry is familiar with Diet Prada.
“I think that every designer in the world is following Diet Prada,” Alber Elbaz, former creative director of fashion house Lanvin, told W magazine.
Diet Prada, helmed by a New York-based duo of fashion aficionados, exposes controversies such as design copycats and racism in fashion and has become the industry´s biggest watchdog. Their Instagram account has 1.3 million followers including Naomi Campbell and Edward Enninful, chief editor of the British edition of Vogue.
“We see one of our responsibilities as informing consumers about the products that are on the market,” Diet Prada founders said in a statement to Buzzfeed News.
Still related to lifestyle, Instagram account Wristbusters calls out those who flaunt counterfeit luxury watches on social media. The account, which is in private setting in spite of its more than 200,000 followers, identifies features of the fake watch in a detailed manner, and compares it with the authentic article.
The Indonesian world of fashion is under surveillance as well, as an Indonesian actor and businessman were also “busted” by the Wristbusters. However, Indonesian Instagram accounts with the purpose of being fashion watchdogs are largely no longer active.
Posting its latest content early last year, Social Symptoms used to call out Indonesian or international stylists and designers who allegedly committed plagiarism. Now de-activated nyinyirfashion was also widely talked about in 2014 when it accused Indonesian designer Priyo Oktaviano of copying Nepalese-American designer Prabal Gurung's collection for Priyo's show in Jakarta Fashion Week.
Charika Channuntapipat, Responsible Business Award (ReBA) academic from the University of Birmingham, wrote in a ReBA blog post that although it was considered unacceptable for designers to take and copy designs from one another, the practice has become somewhat normalized by the idea of a trend that is commonly followed.
What usually occurs is that well-known luxury designer brands accuse other brands, particularly mass-produced fast fashion ones, of being copycats. While it is difficult to prove whether it is plagiarism or simply taking inspiration, the practice is unethical although not always deemed illegal. Unfortunately, fast fashion is often synonymous with exploitative practices that have a bad impact on society and environment.
Lapixa, a free image search and infringement resolution service for photographers and artists, explains on its website that product piracy equals illegal reproduction and copying of products for which the legitimate manufacturers have invention, design and procedural rights. Reproducing or copying is therefore offensive to those who have invested in research and development.
Furthermore, Lapixa wrote that as product pirates do not bear any costs for product development but only produce goods of poor quality the practice could be detrimental to the economy.
Counterfeiting, in the case of cosmetics and medicines, for instance, also potentially harm consumers, as the ingredients and manufacturing could be compromised.
Brands and companies called out by Estée Laundry, Diet Prada and the like react differently. While some apologize and carry out damage control, others may fight back or ignore the accusations.
Rihanna’s cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty, which launched a rosy pink highlighter called Geisha Chic, and was criticized for being culturally insensitive, apologized and removed the products from stores and online stores.
Read also: French court finds Jeff Koons guilty of plagiarism
In another case, influencer/blogger/fashion business owner Arielle Charnas became involved in a social media war with Diet Prada.
The fashion watchdog account accused Charnas of copying a Prada headband for her Something Navy line at Nordstrom.
Matters became complicated when irresponsible netizens made negative, even violent comments about Charnas and her family, stepping far out of the context. The quarrel took place on Charnas’ and Diet Prada’s Instagram stories and were screen-captured by The Guardian.
Although Diet Prada has the point that its call-out of [low quality] copycats is to help prevent more “twisting” of designer fashions, overproducing bad fits and damaging the environment with all the returns [unsatisfied customers reportedly return Something Navy products to Nordstorm], trolling of those who allegedly commit plagiarism is not acceptable. (sop/mut)
