Zara Ripped Off an Independent Artist And Claimed She’s Not Popular
Talk about girl gang power.
The internet has come together once again, this time in defense of Tuesday Bassen, an L.A. based illustrator, whose designs have been ripped off by Zara for the past year.
Once the artist posted her discontent on Instagram and Twitter, her loyal fans flooded Zara’s Instagram account with accusatory comments and hashtags like #supporttuesdaybassen and #boycottzara.
And look how mad people on Twitter are:
if ur an independent artist & you support @ZARA you are directly supporting the plagiarism of independent artists just like you #boycottZara
— john cusack (@____dingus) July 20, 2016
Super mad that evil corporations are crushing independent artists. #boycottzara #tuesdaybassen https://t.co/0NNKVUNfYk
— Holly Knowles (@selwonkyillus) July 20, 2016
@ZARA stop stealing from artists like @tuesdaybassen #boycottZara
— Richard LaRue (@richard_larue) July 20, 2016
Zara refused to cooperate and instead resorted to saying Bassen’s work wasn’t popular enough to be copied. In their response to Bassen’s cease-and-desist letter, the Spanish retailer stated, “the lack of distinctiveness in your client’s purported designs makes it very hard to see how a significant part of the population anywhere in the world would associate the signs with Tuesday Bassen.” Translation: Tuesday isn’t as popular as Zara, so who cares.
Yes, Tuesday Bassen may be an indie artist, but she does boast a loyal cult Instagram following of 117k and 15k on Twitter, as evidenced by the aforementioned comments. Her products have been sold on Nasty Gal and Urban Outfitters, and she recently did a collaboration with Mogwli Surf… so we think Zara may be a little confused on that one.
In lieu of all the attention Zara’s latest rip-off has been getting, they’ve just released a statement explaining that the 4 items in question have been taken off the site. Sorry, Zara but that’s not enough. Ya gotta pay up! Compensate Tuesday Bassen for her work. Like, duh.
As we await further developments, check out all the other artists whose works have been duplicated without permission or compensation here.
