Good lawyers! The Wiggle response gives the impression that it is a denial that the design was based on the existing work, but doesn’t actually say that. It says that their design team didn’t see the new designs passed to them, and that they were influenced by other prior art, and that prior art was not linked to the designer in question. It does not deny that the starting point of the design may well have been, “make us one like that, but improve on it in some way”. Fashion designers pretty much have to live with this the whole time I imagine.

Think Wiggle have responded well to this. The Wiggle top is quite different from the design Ana did.

It’s very much like it, but I think they’ve improved on it. I’d be surprised if it was developed without seeing the designer’s existing work first though, wouldn’t you?

and if I was her id be suspicous too, personally i thnk the statement is BS and theres a designer at DHB right now feelng a little sweaty under the collar about what hes been up to

You think the route to market goes Designer > Shop Floor? Many other people have a hand in getting their kit out, and I doubt any are particularly sweaty

It’s a jersey with stars on it, hardly groundbreaking. Is she going to sue everyone who makes a jersey with stars on it?

I’d never heard of this designer before, in fact, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as cycling kit designers.
However, this “…Ana Nichoola range that was sold in Harrods…” tells me everything I need to know. This is all about getting free publicity, regardless of the outcome with Wiggle.

I suspect there’s a bit of Madeleine McCann Syndrome going on as well.
How much outrage would there be if Wiggle had stolen (or not stolen, as the case may be) a design from an ugly bloke from Hong Kong rather than a pretty white girl?

…in fact, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as cycling kit designers

If I was a cynic, I’d say you’re just being wilfully obtuse.

Well it’s nice that it’s all resolved then, the company accused of plagiarism has had a look round at a few things and decided that they defiantly didn’t. Should save a lot of time in court if we can resolve things like that.
“Did you do that?”
“No.”
“OK then”

I’d not expect them to admit to it on social media if they did.

Well, obviously someone designs the patterns on cycling kit, I just didn’t realise it was a full time job.

Looking at the two AN jerseys on the first page and the dhb offering it seems obvious that they’ve used her designs to create it. Totally amazed some people can’t see it 😯
But really, wiggle-dhb and a designer label sold in Harrods ! I can’t see much of a crossover in sales. Bit like all the Primark stuff inspired by major fashion house designs.

We can’t see it because the only similarity is the use of stars and the use of stripes – design features which have appeared on cycling kit many many times before Anna ever designed anything. Those seeing the similarity appear not to be able to see past them both having stars on, a totally non-unique design. The stripe bit also bears no similarity apart from the use of horizontal lines.

Those who are still convinced one is based on the other, maybe you could explain why the dhb one is more similar to the AN one than any of the other starry tops which have been posted on this thread – other designs which actually have a regular geometric pattern just like the dhb top and unlike the AN top.

BITD…

Lotto Jersey 1986, stars. She wasn’t even born

However, this “…Ana Nichoola range that was sold in Harrods…” tells me everything I need to know. This is all about getting free publicity, regardless of the outcome with Wiggle.

Except she’s nothing to do with the brand anymore.

And I’d echo Jamie that I think you’re being ignorant for the sake of it, do you think Endura and Gore are designed off the side of someone’s desk? 🙄

Well, obviously someone designs the patterns on cycling kit, I just didn’t realise it was a full time job.

How can people engage in a discussion with you, when you’re being like this?

Think of the children, man.

I’ve got a Gore jacket and it’s plain blue.
Yes, I do find it hard to believe that Gore employed a designer to come up with that idea.

Has TJ got MTG tied to a chair? 🙂

Am I the only one wondering WTF is Ana Nicoola? Are we supposed to know who she is? My first thoughts were of that gold-digging lap dancer girl from the US that married the 90yr old billionaire.

Burt Rutan’s going to be suing everyone apparently.

Yes, I do find it hard to believe that Gore employed a designer to come up with that idea.

You’d not believe me then if I said that making good technical clothing is at least as involved and tricky to get right as making a good bike. I have a lot more experience with one than the other, but good outdoor clothing is not easy to do well. The cut, good features, the right materials used well, etc. It may explain why the percentage of clothing that psses me off when using it is higher than the percentage of bikes that have things about them that I don’t like, or certainly the range from good to bad is wider with clothing.

Thinking that design is only related to engineering

I think Jameso has got it here.
We seem to have got sidetracked on to whether “designer” is a valid profession or not.
If Blue Peter held a Design A Cycling Jersey competition, there’s a good chance they’d get a few entries with stars on, very similar to the ones this thread is all about.
If they held a Design A Bike competition, it’s highly unlikely that they would get any designs for a hub gear or lefty fork with stress calculations and materials specifications.
However indignant others may get at my dismissing the value of fashion designers, it still looks like the Emperor’s new clothes to me.

Anyway, back to the original theme of intellectual copyright.
The idea that someone can claim that a cycling jersey with stars on it is their own original idea and that anyone else who then makes one afterwards has copied them is laughable.

The cut, good features, the right materials…

Hang on a minute.
We’re talking about drawings of stars. Nobody’s mentioned the actual structure of the item before.

Poor JamesO seems to have forgotten you can sell any shit these days with the right mates in the right plac doing PR duties

We’re talking about drawings of stars

No. Some people are fixated on the stars. Some people are talking about design and some people aren’t sure what design is. That’s probably why we’ve got to 100 posts with the same arguments being repeated

MTG, I know, but you’re writing off clothing designers as not much more than blue peter competition entrants by assuming that they have no idea of the technical elements of the items they make. I know little of fashion design but I do know that good clothing designers consider the cut and fabric as well as colour or patterns. There’s also the skill of graphic design, stars or whatever is used, to do it well is a talent.

edit to add,

whether “designer” is a valid profession or not.

When graphic or clothing designers can command the salaries that the good ones do, I’d say it was a valid profession.

Poor JamesO seems to have forgotten you can sell any shit these days with the right mates in the right plac doing PR duties

Not for long you can’t 😀

Anyone who’s ever worked as a designer will give a knowing sigh of weary recognition on reading this.
Heres how it goes:

1. Company contacts you regarding coming up with some ‘concepts’ for them
2. You spend days of your time coming up with ideas*
3. You present them to said company, and they say they’ll get back to you
4. Nothing
5. After chasing them up you may get some vague statement about ‘deciding not to proceed with the project’
6. Designs appear that are identical to yours, just slightly tweaked in some half arsed way to make it ‘different’

So they get your ideas. You don’t get paid. Breech of copyright in this area is so grey and vague, and expensive to pursue, that any big company will get away with it. So they repeatedly do it, as a matter of policy, and target young designers specifically as they’re naive and flattered, and view it as an opportunity. Yeah…. an opportunity to get fleeced. You get wise to it as you get older and more cynical.

* Or as some on here would have it ‘sticking some stars on a jumper’. These people are the the ones who also look at abstract expressionist paintings and say ‘I could have have bloody done that!’ 🙄

My missus works in fashion- its routine for everyone to copy big design houses etc then water-down/remake a version asap for the high street chains fast.

It aint right. Definitely aint right when its versus one person not a fellow big business. For a designer at wiggle to deny this is abit rich. Just be honest. There may have been some influence but there was no relationship or agreement in place so we owe you nowt and agreed nowt.

To go on the attack marks Wiggle and their PR as abit Specialized. Corporate.

Jameso, as I understand it, the upset is entirely over the stars, which is why I find it so absurd. Stars have been done before and they’ll be done again.
If Ananichoola had come up with some genuine innovative idea for the placement of zips or pockets for example that had never been seen on a cycling jersey before, then yes, I would think that Wiggle were being unfair.

This does remind me of some workI did a few years ago with students from the Engineering Design department of a university. They wanted to design recumbent bicycles, so I talked them through SWB vs LWB, steering designs, chain routing, important stuff like that, and I used some rough sketches of bikes.

Went back a week later to see what designs they’d come up with – they’d taken my rough sketch and coloured it in, one version with go-faster stripes, one in blue with stars, etc 😉

whether “designer” is a valid profession or not.

If you don’t think it is, then frankly you’re so profoundly stupid then its really not worth entering into any kind of discussion with you. If you don’t see the value of design then you’re clearly totally unaware of your surroundings, or how a capitalist consumer system functions. Adding stars value? Stuff like that?

A mate I went to uni with, on the same graphics course as me, went into fashion, and is now the senior designer at a major label. He designs the clothing, particularly t shirt prints. He earns a massive 6 figure salary, and is regularly dangled even bigger salaries by other high street brands trying to poach him

Why do you think they do this? Because… well… they just like things to look pretty? Or because he’s a shit hot ‘designer’, and his stuff sells by the thousands of units, making them a fortune?

I am unaware if he does stars. Or if he’d plan on after seeing this. Would you like me to ask him for you Graham?

Stars have been done before and they’ll be done again. If Ananichoola had come up with some genuine innovative idea for the placement of zips or pockets

Yes, but the use of the graphic elements and potential establishment of them (or anything else) as part of a designer’s identity can be considered as original as the zips placement etc. Maybe, maybe not in this case (I’m making no comment on that) but a graphic designer would see the use of shape and colour as equally important to be well considered as the zips. You don’t, that’s ok, I’m just suggesting that the ‘design’ consideration of each area is equally valid. Good product design considers both technical and aesthetic considerations.

http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/csm/2011/05/16/csm-goes-to-the-races/

If you don’t think it is, then frankly you’re so profoundly stupid

+1

Good design is incredibly hard to do. It’s a bit like the air or the ground you walk on, you don’t really notice it’s there but by god you notice if it isn’t.

MTG earlier…

I’m a bit ambivalent about “Cycling Fashion” TBH…

I know she’s been regularly appearing on the Cycle show for a couple of years in various tops (obviously her designs) with versions of the Stars motif…

I mean it’s not as if she’s never promoted her designs through that vehicle a bit, and hence gotten them into the wider consciousness of cyclists (and DHB’s designers?).

And it’s not like she’s unaware of the influence that a bit of media profile can have, she quit Ana Nichoola to set up http://www.bestdayevercreative.com/ specifically to take advantage of her profile as a Female cyclist/fashion designer/leader of trends…

I mean I’m pretty sure the wiggle people came away form their meeting saying; “well what has she really got? some nice kit but DHB will design the actual fit/cut of it and we can get samples made up with stars, stripes, moons, teddy bears, whatever… So What actual saleable IP does she have?”

It’s not being mean or cynical, just why would any business (big or small) go paying for something they didn’t have to, are Wiggle/DHB going to see a major backlash for this? I doubt it TBH.

I like her but I do think she’s trying to “ride the wave” of popularised cycling from the last 2/3 years as it’s perhaps starting to flatten out a bit…

whether “designer” is a valid profession or not.

Wow and what do you do for a living Sir?

Everything you see on a day to day basis, touch and experience has been designed. The feel, the look, the texture, the colour. Everything. Be it garment, product. Anything to do with a Consumer has been designed.

Even the forum that you are looking at has graphics that has been designed by someone. How can you not be aware of your environment?

If Blue Peter held a Design A Cycling Jersey competition, there’s a good chance they’d get a few entries with stars on, very similar to the ones this thread is all about.
If they held a Design A Bike competition, it’s highly unlikely that they would get any designs for a hub gear or lefty fork with stress calculations and materials specifications.

That’s a massively flawed argument to suit your daft perspective – you’re picking up on the aesthetics of the hypothetical jersey, and the technical aspects of the hypothetical bike. Apples:oranges.

It would be fairer to say that if they did that competition they’d get a few jerseys with stars, and they’d get a few red bikes. It’s highly unlikely they’d get someone who specified the cut, the technical material, how many panels, how the seams were attached and which grippers were used in the hem, and highly unlikely they’d get a Lefty equipped hub geared freak bike.

Everything you see on a day to day basis, touch and experience has been designed. The feel, the look, the texture, the colour. Everything. Be it garment, product. Anything to do with a Consumer has been designed.

Even the forum that you are looking at has graphics that has been designed by someone. How can you not be aware of your environment?

It’s a good job we’re all different, as my mum says 🙂

Good lord, if the world was full of navel gazey trippy hippy designers, we’d never get anything done.

MTG earlier…

I’m not so sure now. See earlier post