It is said that imitation is the highest form of flattery…. and there is a part of me that is truly humbled that people could love my designs so much that they want to steal them. But to actually pass the design as their own original creation is just not cool. Heck I didn’t even an honorable mention.
I think it’s fine to draw artistic inspiration from other designers or anything you come across that may excite you – after all, we could debate on how ‘new’ any new design truly is. I’ll often find inspiration in vintage jewelry pieces and even make a ballroom version of such a piece (although I will mention that it is a ballroom-ized replica of a Cartier design, for example).
And some designs (a few of my own like this for example) are more basic, and not terribly creative or unique. But still classic and lovely to wear. I wouldn’t ever presume to claim that a design like that is exclusive to us.
Then this came across our attention:
When I first saw the design I thought it looked pretty familiar. It’s not a really complex design but still, the use of larger round flatback stones for the center-most curls and smaller stones on the outer one becomes suspiciously similar, along with the a nearly identical stone cluster placement in the center.
But again – it’s not a highly complicated design, I suppose you could get away with it.
Then we also found this:
In this circumstance, I felt like my design “Sweet Georgia Brown” was a highly unique ballroom jewelry piece. In fact, it was our most re-pinned piece of jewelry on Pinterest. To have another ballroom jewelry vendor completely jack the design (with very little alteration that I can see), goes further than simply being “inspired-by”. In fact, the biggest difference between the two is that they renamed the design to “Clarissa” from “Sweet Georgia Brown”. I don’t know much about the quality of the product but based on the pictures, there was very little effort to alter the design.
Unfortunately this is not the first time.
I found another necklace design replicated floating around anonymously on pinterest (although not quite as accurately but I think the similarities are pretty clear):
That one looked like someone’s personal one-off homemade project, so for some reason it didn’t feel as offensive as another ballroom jewelry vendor taking the design and claiming it as their own unique piece and selling it.
Once we found some headbands, looking awfully familiar [below]. Initially it struck me as a bit odd since it’s not one of our more popular designs, and some stones have been switched up. They upgraded the original (on the foam head) to what you see on the lower right of the picture. Overall it’s not as refined, however some of the flatback tear-shaped stone placements just seemed a little too reminiscent:
(although I admit, in this case, what upsets me the most is the price they’re selling it at!)
But since you can still differentiate our product from theirs (even at a glance), I didn’t find it as particularly offensive as I did in the case of Sweet Georgia Brown.
We’ve all seen it with ballroom dresses as well… all those amazing Vesa dresses that had a knock-off version, or the overseas vendors that claim to sell the same product.
A while ago I posted about a well-known overseas company that stole our pictures and claimed to be selling the same products on ebay. We reported it to ebay and amazingly they were swiftly removed.
I think it’s relatively impossible to avoid having someone steal designs, especially when we have to publish so many images to get ourselves out there. It’s the reason why we don’t really care if people want to take pictures of our products at vendor events (it’s already all online already, so we beat them to it LOL). But as a designer, I feel like there is a certain code—-like not dating your friends’ exes—– if you are making the same products then perhaps don’t steal the exact same ideas. I follow a few other ballroom jewelry designers myself, who also have gorgeous designs (sometimes ones I wish I thought of myself) but it doesn’t give me the right to just go and copy them. I think having respect for the work of other designers is something that’s very important.
After a few deep breaths and kind words by friends suggesting that we must have made ‘industry-leader’ status to be having these kind of problems, I had debated about making this blog post. I’m equal parts flattered and frustrated, and while it’s an honour to be people’s inspiration for some ideas, I’d just appreciate it the future that those who are going to take the designs anyway, maybe just alter it up a little.