Last May 2018, I discovered some very disturbing news.
In fact, I had just written a post on this very style, you can check it out HERE.
Enter May 2018. My other sister alerted me to the copycat version because it had appeared in her feed as a sponsored post.
It was my birth month and what should have been a happy few days just before my birth date, I found out that a big name Southeast Asian shoe brand had released a style that was almost exactly like the popular Swandal style of my beloved shoe brand, Sala Chaussures.
In fact, I had just written a post on this very style, you can check it out HERE.
Last June 2017, we launched a style that became a signature style of our brand. It featured two half bows that were perched on top of a single toe strap. The bows itself were drawn and conceptualized by my sister and Sala Co-founder, which she incorporated into her wedding shoes. After her wedding, we decided to use the bow design and placed it on a more wearable but still chic shoe design. The Odette Swandals were then born. It featured the bows that we made atop an open toe flat slide. It turned out to be a great success. It looked SO pretty and almost everyday since we finished production on this style, I have been wearing them over and over again. A few months after we came out with the first three colors (camel, champagne and black), we released several other colors. Three of these were in a satin texture (emerald, marsala and black) and then we released 4 more colors in a man made leather version (dark rose, sand, oxblood and navy)
I've never been more proud of this design - it was stylish and chic and also comfortable and casual enough to wear for everyday. The best part was, even if the swandals looked great in casual outfits, I could still wear it with more formal clothes as well. They still looked appropriate with skirts and dresses for dinners and events where I did not feel like wearing heels. Or they were the extra pair of shoes I would bring to weddings that I could change into when the dancing and partying came, or whenever I felt tired wearing my heels. They looked fancy enough under formal wear, yet super comfortable to last all night in.
Enter May 2018. My other sister alerted me to the copycat version because it had appeared in her feed as a sponsored post.
I am not going to mention any name brands - just that this brand is definitely WAY bigger than us and have WAY more capital and are a Southeast Asian brand. Not only do the shoes look almost EXACTLY alike, they also made the same satin versions of it and two out of the few colors they made were exactly like ours. Emerald green and black. This wasn't just some random copying, it was blatant-almost-to-a-tee-copying! The positioning of the bows, the shape of the flat and even the size of the heel are almost exactly alike.
How is it that it can look exactly the same? It's really not possible that they came up with these themselves and that it was a "coincidence" that our shoes look alike - if you look though our Instagram account we came out with this style almost a full year before. Our account being a business account, naturally is public so maybe this is how they were able to steal the same look. Or else, somebody may have bought a pair from us and took it to their factory to rip off the exact same look.
How is it that it can look exactly the same? It's really not possible that they came up with these themselves and that it was a "coincidence" that our shoes look alike - if you look though our Instagram account we came out with this style almost a full year before. Our account being a business account, naturally is public so maybe this is how they were able to steal the same look. Or else, somebody may have bought a pair from us and took it to their factory to rip off the exact same look.
I couldn't believe it. There are copiers who take inspiration from other designs and maybe follow one element here and make their own spin there, but this one looks ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME. But then again, scrolling along their Instagram page, I noticed they had a hotpink design in an ANOTHER almost exact copy of another design of a bigger fashion house. So this brand is no stranger to copying designs.
So what's an independent design house like us supposed to do? Our shoes are all made in the Philippines, in Marikina, and all made by hand by cottage industry shoe makers. We don't have huge factories that produce thousands of pairs that we sell to the masses. We don't have nice big stores in every mall to cater to the general public. Our shoes are supposed to be in the artisan category, curated designs and limited releases where a few can appreciate the design and aesthetic. Instead, our designs and efforts have now have been cheapened by this big brand. I'm not talking about price points (can you believe the audacity of this brand, to charge more for their copycat pair? Though our shoes are original, we always maintain our stand that they should be super affordable and that decadence should not be too expensive), but I'm talking about how they basically depreciated and downgraded all our efforts and hard work. It was SO easy for them to just put out this design that was conceptualized by US.
The thing with fashion is that it has such loose laws on patenting and owning designs. We see all these fake high end fashion everywhere and it seems nobody is able to do anything about it. It's rampant in the the fashion world. Big brands like Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton all have copycats everywhere. But in our case, the tables are turned. It's the bigger company copying the smaller, independent one. So if these big brands cant even do anything about their copycats, how much more the indie ones?
I thought to put out my thoughts in this blog post because I feel like I just had to air out our experience and our take on this. It turns out, this has also already happened to many small and more independent designers. There are so many stories out there about the big power houses ripping off indie artists and not caring and not doing anything about it. (Check out these articles HERE and HERE).
By sheer coincidence, around the same time in May, one of the many shoe brands that I follow in my personal Instagram account posted about a big time designer who did the exact same thing to him. He posted it on his account and also said that initially he did not want to go public but he felt that he had to because in a way, it was like representing all those other small indie brands and all the pains that we all felt when something like this happens. He stated : "I shared because we are the voice of many small brands that may contribute to stop bigger brands copying smaller brands. The beauty of fashion is about telling your story, and being authentic. So do that!" I could not agree with him more!
By sheer coincidence, around the same time in May, one of the many shoe brands that I follow in my personal Instagram account posted about a big time designer who did the exact same thing to him. He posted it on his account and also said that initially he did not want to go public but he felt that he had to because in a way, it was like representing all those other small indie brands and all the pains that we all felt when something like this happens. He stated : "I shared because we are the voice of many small brands that may contribute to stop bigger brands copying smaller brands. The beauty of fashion is about telling your story, and being authentic. So do that!" I could not agree with him more!
Thanks to this brand for inspiring me to share our story. I don't know if the bigger designer actually did anything about it or what, and I also don't know if our own bad guy will do anything, but he was right. They can never steal our thoughts, our authenticity and mindset on how we go about our designs. Just as long as we KNOW within our hearts that we stayed authentic and know it is OUR design.
Hope you guys can share this story so that we can all be aware of this issue of blatant copying.
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