It’s a shame when you give a lot of credibility and appreciation to big fashion brands in Pakistan who have beautiful designs and even better prices (not)… but then you find out that they indulge in plagiarism because you’re a design/pattern addict, you have a Pinterest account which you religiously use to browse, and you also happen to have a PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY.  Now that’s REALLY a shame isn’t it?

Mariam Hameedi is a girl from Karachi who takes design and patterns very seriously without having to be in the fashion industry.

Because of her photographic memory, she can spot copied or seen-somewhere-else designs in a second and was appalled by the ethics some fashion brands have because they are blatantly copying designs from Pinterest.

“I just wish you guys were more innovative with your designs… it’s not just unethical but kind of silly to be doing such a thing in this day and age” says Hameedi in one of her posts, to a prestigious fashion brand.

It’s really sad when you see these brands hiring educated and talented people but the designs that come out are not inspiring creations but lazy copies.

I mean, there is such a thing called ‘taking inspiration’ which is still acceptable because you’re paying homage to the person but taking someone else’s designs without crediting them for creating them? NOPE.

The designs Hameedi has brought to attention aren’t even adaptations of these Pinterest designs, they’re outright copies from designers or artists who probably don’t even know about them, at all.

Here‘s the original art work this piece above has been inspired from.

Here’s another pretty famous brand doing the same

After having coming across these posts by Hameedi, MangoBaaz took it upon ourselves to have a little chit chat with her and find out what is really happening here? Are top brands like Sapphire and Alkaram really doing some major outright CHAAPA?

“Oh this is nothing, I have an entire collection of prints and designs on my Pinterest and I’ve seen SO MANY other brands plagiarize off them. I’ve stopped putting them up because I’m not at all hopeful about things changing with this rant… but I can send you a few if you want”

Well of course we wanted to see who else is on the bandwagon of chaapa(considering that’s the talk of the town these days in the fashion industry with all the lawn ads being labeled ‘chaapas‘) and this is what we were shown:

So here we go

This is the original print.

And again

The image on the left happens to be Hameedi’s mothers unstiched fabric (later stitched) from Khaadi and the image on the right happens to be the design (once again) from here. Interesting…

It never ends

Here‘s the original.

The point is not to name and shame to bash fashion brands but to bring to light a serious matter of plagiarism which our fashion designers are not taking seriously. Also, wouldn’t it be so much fun to actually wear original designs?

“It’s good to be inspired by great work but outright replication?! That is not justified for any brand to be doing something like that and taking credit for someone else’s hard work”, Hameedi, concludes, “I just wish people had more shame and brains”.

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