The little people can’t seem to get any shine. Urban Outfitters, your favorite one-stop hipster shop for all that is overpriced and grungy-looking, has been virtually castrated by Twitter users after indie jewelry designer Stevie Koerner blogged and tweeted about the company stealing her designs. The well-deserved public flogging not only let consumers know just how fudgeed up Urban Outfitters is to the little people, but it also let people know just how far back Urban has been stealing designs from independent designers. Shameful. Read more after the jump.
Koerner’s “United States of Love” line, which she sells on Etsy, features a pendant in the shape of a U.S. state with a heart inside. Her line became so popular that she was able to rely on it for income and quit her full time job. Here enters Urban Outfitters and their thieving ways. Koerner’s friend sent her a link to an Urban Outfitters necklace that could have been the twin to one of Koerner’s designs. Koerner took to her Tumblr and wrote the following,
“I’m very disappointed in Urban Outfitters. I know they have stolen designs from plenty of other artists. I understand that they are a business, but it’s not cool to completely rip off an independent designer’s work.”
“I will no longer be shopping at any of their stores.”
Rightfully so.
According to The Brooklyn Paper, Urban Outfitters has a bit of a history of ripping off indie designers. Lillian Crowe, a Brooklyn designer whose jewelry designs include skulls and rib cages, found an Urban Outfitters necklace in store, exactly like hers. The Village Voice found reports of Urban’s design jacking going back to 2006, including t-shirt and jewelry design ripoffs. That’s as shady as the $52 shorts with holes one Urban Outfitters sales associate was trying to sell me. Do better, Urban. It’s time to stop sending your people to walk around the hipster parts of NYC for apparel design ideas. That’s just hipster on hipster crime.
