In today’s disappointing fashion news, it appears that Christian Dior joins the ranks of prominent fashion mega brands ripping off independent designers. Last night, Karuna Ezara Parikh, an Indian TV presenter, called out their seemingly blatant plagirism on Instagram, and the post picked up steam when it was shared by @diet_prada, an account dedicated to calling out knock-offs. The side-by-side comparison of two nearly identical fabric prints makes an irrefutable case that Dior ripped off the handcrafted design of Delhi-based brand People Tree.
The evidence is jarring: @diet_prada’s post goes on to show multiple images of Dior’s Resort ’18 collection next to the People Tree original designs and they are damn-near exact. Maybe it would have gone unnoticed, but Dior’s print was photographed on Elizabeth Olsen and was featured on the cover of Elle India, modelled by Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor.
Thats when People Tree’s founder’s daughter Pakhi Sen took to Facebook to share her shock.
It all begs the question: in a time when the internet is stocked with receipts, how do brands think they can get away with this? More importantly, with all of their capital and basically unlimited resources, why do they rely on lazy imitations?
Dior isn’t the first or only brand to get caught for design theft: from Zara’s never ending spiral of fast fashion knockoffs to Kendall + Kylie’s use of copyrighted imagery in their latest line of vintage tees, this seems to happen more than we can count.
Dior has yet to respond to these allegations, but we’ll be watching.
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