Lipstick print: Saint Laurent 2015 versus Forever 21...2013

By

Anne-Sophie Savenier

Published
Sep 9, 2015

Some bad publicity that the Saint Laurent fashion house would have happily done without. A debate has been raging on the web for some days now: where does the boundary between inspiration and plagiarism lie? At the root of this debate, a highly sensitive one for the fashion world, is a lipstick-print fabric. 

In its Autumn/Winter 2015 collection, Saint Laurent featured a line in which a lipstick print looms large: a clutch bag, a shoulder bag, a crêpe blouse and also, crucially, a dress.   

However, the last item, on sale for € 2,490, is the spitting image, due to the print on the fabic, of a dress created by Forever 21 in… 2013.

It didn't take more than that to start a fire on the Internet, and this even though the print has become a classic for several brands, such as Zara and H&M.

So, is it plagiarism, a coincidence or simply inspiration?

At any rate, the whole web, and blogger Nicolette Mason in particular, being the first to note the similarity between the two prints, have all passed judgement…

Did Hedi Slimane copy the style of the Forever 21 dress, which when it came out cost €25?

For the moment, Saint Laurent has not responded to these accusations.