H&M Rips Off Atlanta Artist Tori LaConsay?

Did you hear about the drama this week surrounding fashion brand H&M?  Let’s just say there’s a lot of damage control in the works…

An Atlanta, GA based artist Tori LaConsay apparently just had her work ripped off by H&M.  And what’s worse, besides putting her work into products for sale, H&M initially blew her off when she questioned them.

Here’s the story:  Back in 2008, LaConsay painted the sign shown above “You Look Nice Today” with a little red heart at the bottom as a “love letter” to her neighborhood in Atlanta.  One side of the sign read that, and the other side said “I’m So Happy You’re Here.”  In a nutshell, Tori LaConsay said the following of her work, "It was a small gesture that I genuinely hoped would make my neighbors feel good."

Well, looks like it made H&M designers feel good as a graphic that looks nearly identical to her work started appearing on their products (pillow above).  The worst part?  When LaConsay emailed H&M customer service about the issue, she received an email back saying:

“We employ an independent team of over 100 designers. We can assure you that this design has not been influenced by your work and that no copyright has been infringed.”

Sigh.  It’s difficult to see an artist work copied without so much as a credit and compensation. 

Seems like there was a pretty big uproar on H&M’s facebook, so they recently tweeted the following:

“We’re very sorry about our CS team’s answer, it's unfortunate and we apologize for it. We're in direct contact with Tori LaConsay.”

Perhaps Tori will get the credit she deserves.  What do you think about the controversy? 

Posted by:  Spankie V.

(Photos: globalgrind)

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