Tough Shirt: Delevinge 'steals future'

10 December 2015 - 02:13 By Olivia Lidbury, ©The Daily Telegraph

A feminist sweatshirt worn and subsequently manufactured by model-turned-actress Cara Delevingne is causing a copyright furore online. The minimalist design, which bears the slogan "The Future is Female", is being sold by the 23-year-old via represent.com and is a carbon copy of a top recently bought by Delevingne's girlfriend, singer Annie Clark. Clark bought two slogan tops - one for herself and one for Cara - from a Los Angeles-based design studio and feminist community centre called Otherwild.Rachel Berks, co-founder of Otherwild got the inspiration for the top after seeing a photo from 1975 of Alix Dobkin wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan on the lesbian feminist Instagram account @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y. The T-shirt was made to raise funds for Labyris Books, the first women's bookshop in New York City, which opened in 1972.Otherwild's Berks obtained permission to re-create the T-shirt and was delighted to sell one to Clark but Berks has since called out Delevingne on Instagram for copying her design, branding the move "indefensible".She wrote: "Otherwild's redesign and reissue of the FIF tees and buttons is protected under copyright law, which mandates that any reproduction of an existing known public work must be altered at least 20% from the original."Delevingne has sold over 1200 of the T-shirts so far and is donating an unspecified amount from sales to Girl Up, which promotes the health, safety, and education of girls in developing countries. Delevingne clearly states that the design is: "A re-creation of the original shirt worn by Alix Dobkin in 1975 in a photograph by Liza Cowan" but omits any mention of Otherwild. ..

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