Vivy Yusof and her team are no stranger to plagiarism controversies. Is imitation still a form of flattery or it happens one too many times?
In a more recent plagiarism allegation that came to light this week, one Twitter user decided to call the controversial entrepreneur’s fashion labels – Lilit and FashionValet – out for apparently stealing the designs from a smaller brand known as Inner Valley, entertainment portal Murai reported.
The user, @loftsedfaun, tweeted, “Dear @vivyyusof, @lilitwoman and @FashionValet, I hope you’re having a great day once again for destroying a small business’s dream over and over again. It clearly shows that you guys are capitalists dressing as friendly entrepreneurs.”
The netizen added in another thread, “Is it because you have money you can trample others? And this wasn’t the first time as far as I know? I don’t have the power to bring your business down, but why [would you] often ‘steal’ [our designs] and didn’t even bother to approach us for a ‘collaboration’?
as far as the case is concerned, none of the small businesses who fell victim had ever won any cases.”
Adding into his statement, the internet user also went as far as to compare the people working with the fashion label in question to the Kardashian family. According to him, “Just because they have money, they’ll do anything to break people’s heart and stay relevant and rich? These people are worse than Kardashians. Not gonna lie. For so many years, they did it again. Is originality overrated for highly paid designers hired by y’all ‘itik’ (dUCk) TEAM?”
In similar news, Siti Nurhaliza’s cosmetics brand, SimplySiti, was also called out for allegedly copying a packaging design from its competitor company, Kayman Beauty. For those wondering, the plagiarism allegation was first brought up by a Twitter netizen known as @NabellaAnuar.
The company later took immediate action by issuing a public apology for the “misunderstanding”, in addition to clearing the air on the previous statement left by Nabella (who happens to be the founder of Kayman Beauty). “SimplySiti didn’t intend to copy any products or packaging,” they clarified, before adding that, “the wet wipes are produced by a general manufacturer.”
They continued, “We are sorry for the misunderstanding that happened. We have great respect for other beauty brands and embrace healthy competition in the industry. Hopefully with this explanation, all the confusions and misunderstandings between SimplySiti and Kayman Beauty can be resolved in a positive light.”
Here’s what Kayman Beauty wrote in response to SimplySiti’s statement on social media:
“Thanks for the explanation @officialsimplysiti @ctdk. This is the final design from our designers. We formulate and design ourselves from scratch. Not a factory template formulation and not a factory template design.”
According to Coconuts, the facial wipes by the iconic songbird’s cosmetics brand were launched last month, while Kayman Beauty officially dropped theirs last year.
Sources: Murai (1)(2), Coconuts.
