Hopeless Lingerie shared a photo of an item for sale on ASOS next to a photo from their own range on Tuesday 30 August and asked Twitter users to “spot the difference”.
“Shame on you @ASOS once again ripping off independent designers,” the tweet continued.
An ASOS spokesperson told The Huffington Post UK the claims are a legal matter, which the company takes very seriously and shared the following statement:
“ASOS take all design infringements very seriously, this matter has been passed on to our legal team for review,”
But Hopeless Lingerie was not impressed by the response:
A spokesperson from Hopeless told HuffPost UK: “We put our heart and soul into our designs and ideas, spending months creating and researching stories to base our collections around.
“When our designs are removed from this context and replicated by big retailers, it damages our brand and all the work that has gone into developing each product.
The fashion industry is at its heart - a creative one. There is enough room within the industry for small independent brands who focus on the artistic side, and bigger retailers to work independently from each other. Brands can be inspired by trends, without replicating designs verbatim.
“We hope that in the future these bigger retailers will see how damaging this behaviour can be to smaller brands, both financially and ethically. They have the resources to employ designers to create original designs, and could promote positive change in this area. It would be great to see more working with independent designers instead of against them.”
The brand founded in 2008 by owner and designer Gabrielle Adamidis went into more detail about their complaint on Instagram.
“It’s not the first time this has happened and I’m sure not the last,” the caption read.
“We are a very small, independent brand. Here at Hopeless we make every single item one by one, for each customer as they place their order, and put a huge amount of love and care behind every single design.
“It’s pretty heartbreaking to see things like this happen, and more so knowing that we are absolutely not alone, this behaviour is rife in the fashion industry.”
Hopeless Lingerie then made reference to the case of Tuesday Bassen who along with Adam J. Kurtz accused Zara of ‘copying’ 20 independent artists designs.
“Let these big companies know you don’t agree with how they operate by shopping independent and being vocal when things like this happen,” urged Hopeless Lingerie on Instagram.
“It’s not okay.”