Forever 21 Accused Of Columbusing A T-Shirt Design From A Public Relations Agency

WORD Co-Founder Angela Carrasco told Jezebel that a customer tipped them off about the similarities between Forever 21’s “The Woman Shirt” and their company’s “The Creator Shirt” – which they created to benefit Planned Parenthood. WORD’s shirt has been on sale since July.

“We were just so utterly confused,” said Carrasco, who co-founded WORD with Zoila Darton. “We were trying to retrace our steps like who could we have shown this to?”

“Maybe they want to capitalize off of feminism,” Darton said. “But feminism is not new to me, it’s something that I really believe, so to see it being co-opted this way is shocking.”

The company posted a side-by-side photo of the two shirts on their Instagram page and asked their followers to share it with others. The post quickly received thousands of likes and comments.

The two business owners are considering taking legal action against Forever 21. Since WORD posted on social media, Forever 21 responded with an official statement.

“The shirt in question was bought from a third party source. As soon as Forever 21 was alerted to the issue, we respectfully removed it from our website. Because this product did not have trademark or IP protections, there were no red flags raised at the time of purchase.”

Darton pleaded with Forever 21 to donate whatever proceeds they’ve received from sales of the shirt to the original cause for creating the shirt – to support women and Planned Parenthood.

“Forever 21, if you’re reading this, please donate the money you’ve made off of this shirt to Planned Parenthood,” Darton pleaded. “Because that’s what this was all about.”

Article Appeared @https://blavity.com/forever-21-accused-of-stealing-t-shirt-design-from-small-agency

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