Urban Outfitters Thievery – Myth or Truth?

14Mar07

In this recent post discussing Companies Stealing from other Companies, I mentioned Urban Outfitters.

During a discussion about a business meeting with an executive from Urban Outfitters the topic of their company stealing designs and concepts from other designers and companies. This was the third or fourth time that this had been mentioned to me in a very short time period.

Here are a few articles/posts/threads that I found on the topic that suggest they are on the losing end of the argument.

But I also know that they buy t-shirts wholesale to sell in their stores from Busted Tees and Paul Frank. So, why steal from one company and buy from another? Maybe because Paul Frank is a large respected company and name in the industry? Or because of an existing relationship? Or maybe they know they’d be sued? Who knows.

So, I am curious. Is this an example of the small ganging up on the big? Or is this actually a case of the big company taking advantage of the smaller companies and throwing their weight around?

I honestly don’t know, but I can tell you that I would proceed with caution when dealing with them.

What do you think? Any direct experience with them negative or positive?

Filed under: t-shirt business tips, t-shirt companies | 5 Comments

5 Responses to “Urban Outfitters Thievery – Myth or Truth?”

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1 How to start a clothing line from scratch on March 15, 2007 said:

thats crazy…but I know another company that had one of his t-shirt designs stolen by them the brand is Chilly-o check out the site and see if you see anything familiar.. http://www.chillyo.com

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2 Mark on May 8, 2007 said:

I do not have experience with them about this, but have been warned by many in the industry to stay away from UO until you are big enough that they cannot easily rip you off.

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3 Chilly-O on May 24, 2007 said:

Hello,

I’m not one to bitch, but what do you do when you walk in a store and see your original concept displayed for the masses to partake. I created a shirt about 3 years ago, called I’m a Genius! I added F@#kin’ to the shirt for edge. So it read I’m a F@#kin’ Genius. We showed at Magic a few years ago and they called us a novelty brand because of the slogans on shirts. Now every streetwear brand has used this type of design, even the ones who called us a novelty brand. Slogan shirts are generally in novelty shops or tourist attractions but we urbanized it. Then I walked in Urban Outfitters a few months ago and saw Junk Food had the same concept or should I say, shirt. We are in the streets, so we will always create what I like to call “Albums.” So you will always have to wait on Chilly-O Ski…believe that!

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4 Chilly-O on August 14, 2007 said:

If you referring to the thumbprint. A common symbol used in fashion, especially hip-hop. That was simply to use my old logo, on my old shirts until I got a logo. My fingerprint! All Chilly-O heads remember this. About 2003 or so….

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5 j- Dizzle on September 6, 2007 said:

I’ve also seen some rip-offs of some shirts on donkeyts.com at Urban Outfitters. I now refuse to buy a shirt from urban.

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