STITCHED UP?
More 'copycat' Gavin Rajah designs
THE catwalk cat fight between designer Gavin Rajah and the man accusing him of plagiarism continued on social media this week with name-calling, insinuations and lawyers’ letters going back and forth.
As the designers traded insults, eagle-eyed fashionistas set about inspecting every stitch and bead of Rajah’s work, looking for examples of copying.
The fashionable gloves came off when Durban businessman Sim Tshabalala called Rajah out last week on a dress he showed at Cape Town Fashion Week. It was strikingly similar to one by Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad.
Rajah said he had never seen the Murad dress and his design had been conceptualised from Japanese wood-block prints of the rising sun.
He brought in lawyers in an attempt to gag Tshabalala.
A letter from Rajah’s attorneys, posted on his Facebook page, cautioned Tshabalala that “your allegations may amount to unlawful defamation”.
The letter refers to a second allegation of copying made by Tshabalala, who has also claimed that a floral evening gown by Rajah, with sheer patterning on the front, was very similar to a Max Azria Atelier dress worn on the red carpet this year by actress Maria Menounos.
“Our client’s dress design predates that of the other dress, being a design repeated from his October 2013 collection,” the lawyers’ letter states. “It seems you are engaging in a pattern of unlawful and defamatory allegations.”
Tshabalala said he had been inundated with examples sent to him by other people.
Among the designs shared on social media this week was an Alexander McQueen gown worn by actress Kate Hudson to the Golden Globes last year. A picture posted on the Rajah Facebook page in 2013 shows a similar design — with several people commenting on the similarity.
A white Rajah dress with a dramatic open back, which TV personality Bonang Mathebe wore to meet Prince Harry last year, bears a striking resemblance to one worn by Hudson, this time at the 2010 Screen Actors’ Guild Awards.
Tshabalala said Rajah did “not have an ounce of integrity” and claimed that the first “offending” dress had been made with knock-off designer fabric from a Durban store.
Tshabalala did not provide evidence for this claim and Rajah challenged him in a Facebook comment to do so.
When contacted, a weary-sounding Rajah said: “I’m done with this. This is Sim’s thing. He’s agreed to meet soon, so we’ll see from there.”
In 2011, local designers Nkhensani Nkosi, of Stoned Cherrie, and Thula Sindi became involved in a spat over the design of skirts they showed at shows about a month apart.
Sindi claimed Stoned Cherrie had stolen the idea for the A-line skirt with a “paper bag” waist.
Nkosi said similar designs had been seen on the runways at Fendi and Prada shows the year before.