It’s so lame for large corporate style shops to flat out copy independent artists, you’d think we’d be past this as a business model by now but apparently no. This sort of thing is rampant with a certain company, it seems like every week I see an artist on social media lamenting that their hard work has been poorly knocked off by a them. I’m not going to name the shop here or link to the knock-off because I don’t want any drama (or to feed them traffic), but I did want to say, “I saw what you did and I hope even more people realize your ethics are trash“.
Do these “shops” not realize they are harming the alt community they claim to be a part of?
They’ve got the money to fight any kind of litigation smaller creators could afford to volley towards them and have probably already made hundreds of copies of my dress design. I know there are trends and many clothing labels will all be participating in the same theme at times- but honestly this is a pretty blatant rip off. I must be doing something right, lol!
It just seems sad to have all that budget and wholesale capacity and spend it on ripping off people like me instead of hiring a designer or inquiring about licensing designs/wholesaling before stopping to artistic burglary? Gross and so not what alternative culture is about. These corporate labels have no roots in the community they want to profit from, have no respect for or interest in supporting the artists working within those communities.
*Not to mention all the racism this particular “shop” has demonstrated.
Gloomth & the Cult of Melancholy 
i see this after i spend 150+ dollars on them 😭 not sure how yours is, but i know from experience their quality def not matching the set price.
Yeah, it’s pretty disappointing to see a large company literally stealing from the community they claim to service. Like surely these people make enough to hire designers who don’t just copy smaller artists? They need a budget overhaul clearly LOL. 🙂