Indie Designer Takes to Twitter to Accuse Zara of Copying Her Designs

An indie designer has used Twitter to claim that retail giant Zara has been copying her designs without compensation or credit.

Tuesday Bassen — who is based in Los Angeles and has worked with such brands as Adidas, Nike, and Urban Outfitters and just launched a collaboration with Mowgli — tweeted: “@Zara consistently uses my work against my wishes and without any compensation.”

She posted an image comparing Zara’s designs with her own, and the similarities are striking.

She also claimed that Zara rejected her claims of copyright because she’s an indie designer and Zara is a large company with a larger number of visitors to its website.

Bassen went on to tweet that “companies like @zara make it a business plan to steal designs from indie artists & condescend when you want payment.”

She also uploaded an apparent excerpt from a letter she received from the company’s lawyers, adding “@Zara’s lawyers are literally saying I have no base because I’m an indie artist and they’re a major corporation.”

She says that she plans to press further charges despite the cost of hiring a lawyer and says that this is a price not every artist can pay.

“I want to point out that most artists don’t even get this far,” she tweeted. “The ‘luxury’ of spending $2k for a lawyer to write a letter… is something most artists cannot afford.”

“This is for me and this is for every single artist that can’t do anything,” she said.

Bassen also claimed that Zara has “stolen from several other small art business owners.”

She’s glad for her fans’ support, wrapping up by saying, “Thank you everyone for being so supportive. I hate making this my focus in life, I’d rather make illustrations and cool new stuff.”

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