Lane Bryant Becomes Latest Retailer to Be Accused of Ripping Off an Artist

Update, September 16 9:30am: Lane Bryant has stopped selling the Tee shirt and removed all marketing images and social content featuring the item. They are in active conversations with Shantell Martin regarding the situation.

Yet another big-brand retailer is accused of “Goliath-ing” over an independent designer, using the designer’s work without credit or payment. This time it’s plus-size brand Lane Bryant, and New York artist Shantell Martin claims that the brand’s new “6th and Lane” collection takes directly from her work.

Related: 5 Amazing Independent Designers to Support Instead of Zara

Martin is known for exploring the question “Who Are You?” and using the phrase “You Are You,” the latter of which appears on a T-shirt in the Lane Bryant collection. But beyond the phrase itself, which could be coincidental, the placement, lettering and background drawings all seem remarkably similar to Martin’s unique aesthetic.

A screenshot of Lane Bryant’s Instagram image (since removed by Lane Bryant) that Martin posted on Facebook shows the suspect T-shirt. (Photo: Facebook/Shantell Martin)

When Lane Bryant attempted to promote the T-shirt on Instagram this week, comments poured in in defense of Martin — and excoriating the company for stealing work from an independent artist.

In a post on Facebook (above), Martin shared one of Lane Bryant’s Instagram pictures and wrote “Stolen! I did not give permission to this brand to take/use my stuff.”

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A page describing the 6th and Lane microbrand gives credit for the line to a designer named Tess Gibson, noting, “To reimagine 6TH & LANE, we sought a designer with the creative spirit of an artist. Someone inspired to push the boundaries of fashion beyond the runway and into the space where modern girls want to live and love.”

A photo posted by Shantell Martin (@shantell_martin) on Sept. 3, 2016, at 6:08 a.m. PT

Artist Shantell Martin. (Instagram)

It goes on to describe Gibson as “a designer who knows what every girl wants: a style, not a knock off.” (Oops!)

Initially, Lane Bryant’s only response to Martin’s accusation was to comment on Instagram with a brief note, thanking everyone for bringing the situation to its attention and saying that it would share it with the company’s legal team for review. The Instagram posts promoting the shirt have since been deleted, however, and the product page to buy the T-shirt removed.

Related: Target Accused of Plagiarizing an Etsy Shop Owner

Ascena Retail Group, Lane Bryant’s parent company, has not responded to Yahoo Style’s requests for comment.

This is far from the first time a major retailer has allegedly tried to gank an independent designer’s work without permission or payment. Many “fast fashion retailers” have been indicated in such scandals, including H&M, which printed a piece of art by Tori LaConsay on a collection of home goods in 2012. The brand made things worse by obfuscating, initially saying in no uncertain terms, “We can assure you that this design has not been influenced by your work and that no copyright has been infringed,” then waffling and admitting that it was “inspired” by LaConsay’s work.

In February, Anthropologie was accused of copying a signature bag design from a small company, Forestbound, and its sister company Urban Outfitters has been one of the worst offenders — being accused of copyright violations repeatedly over the years. In 2014, it removed a skirt with a stolen design from the website and released a statement.

And then there were this summer’s allegations that retailer Zara stole more than 40 designs from independent designers and then wrote a dismissive response to one of them, Tuesday Bassen, saying that the handful of complaints was insignificant compared to its millions of customers worldwide.

The Zara thefts at least seemed to have been based on the assumption that small companies would not be well known enough for their work to be recognized (and not well equipped enough to fight back against giant corporations). But in this case, Lane Bryant may have picked the wrong artist to mess with, as Martin is a very successful and recognizable artist who had a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2014.

Adam J. Kurtz, one of the artists who had designs stolen by Zara, pointed this out in a recent tweet:

so @lanebryant built a campaign around stolen work by famous artist @shantell_martin & thought nobody would notice?? pic.twitter.com/srlS3v7kzm

Unfortunately for Lane Bryant, people noticed. It remains to be seen how the brand will respond to the faux pas, if at all.

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