The skirt is mine...the frilly A-line skirt is mine!

The battle rages on! The latest spat in local fashion is the high waisted,  A line frilled waistband skirt shown at Thula Sindi AND Stoned Cherrie.  The skirts are extremely similar, the only difference being that  Sindi used lightweight nylon taffeta and Stoned Cherrie used their woven fabric range.

Thula Sindi is quoted in the Mail & Guardian saying...

"I was very surprised to see the skirt, which is remarkably similar to mine in pattern, detail and proportion, walking down the runway. Certain editors and bloggers immediately alerted me to the glaring similarity. When I landed my deal with Edgars, the skirt was central to the collection and was in all five stores from September 2011."

The Thula Sindi skirt

Thula Sindi is alleging Stone Cherrie jacked the design from Thula Sindi’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Jo’burg line that debuted – February 2011 as part of his winter collection. Stoned Cherrie showed the skirt at SA Fashion Week in Rosebank – last weekend of March 2012.

In response, Nkosi, the founder and creative director of Stoned Cherrie, said the brand's skirt was created at the end of 2010.

The Stoned Cherrie skirt

"We had designed a box-pleat waist skirt before for an Amsterdam-based exhibition in Cape Town called Salon/Locale in February 2011, which Harry Lekwane, one of our designers, had conceptualised before the exhibition. We are not aware of any copyright that Thula Sindi has on this concept and should he believe that it was stolen, then are we to assume that he also stole the concept from Prada and Fendi skirts?” ~ says Nkensani Nkosi.

Weighing in on last year’s Christian Louboutin vs Yves Saint Laurent saga over the red sole, Dion Chang, trend analyst at Flux Trends was quoted as saying...

“...we are inspired by osmosis and assimilation. In this day and age, with so many shared images going around, it is difficult to claim something completely as yours, because I think somebody will find something that is so similar that you could argue both sides of the coin anyway."

For the designer, it must bite terribly though! Concepts and patterns...it’s tricky. Whether it is film, music or fashion...is there really such a thing as an original idea? Pablo Picasso was on it years ago when he said: "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." *Yeezy shrug*