Has Vetements accused Balenciaga of plagiarism

It looks like a meme, but it's not. A few hours ago, Vetements' official Instagram page posted an image showing how a long-sleeved tee made by Balenciaga as a promotional item for the launch of the brand's new playlist for Apple Music, is essentially copied from a t-shirt produced by Vetements last year. It would be a masterpiece of online trolling in full Demna Gvasalia style if it were not that the Georgian designer abandoned the creative direction of the brand almost a year ago to work full time at Balenciaga, leaving his brother, Guram, to lead the administrative of Vetements. 

In that intricate and often completely unknowable world that is that of design teams – whose work is often attributed to a single creative director but which is actually created by a group of designers – it is difficult to understand who copied who. The fact that the design of the shirt consists mainly of a graphic that reproduces the sticker "Hello, my name is..." doesn't help much because it's untied. It may have been Gvasalia who copied himself – even if it would be a bit embarrassing. It may have been a bizarre coincidence: that is, the Vetements team would create the t-shirt imitating Gvasalia's ironic style that would then be imitated by the Balenciaga team. In any case, this faux pas, if indeed it is a faux pas and not an advertising move, would have been avoidable with minimal online search work. 

Balenciaga FW20 vs. Vetements FW20

Balenciaga FW20 vs. Vetements FW20

Balenciaga FW20 vs. Vetements FW20

Balenciaga FW20 vs. Vetements FW20

Balenciaga FW20 vs. Vetements FW20

This case recalls the constant debate about authorship in fashion and the lawsuit that saw Hedi Slimane win against Kering in 2016 because, among other things, Saint Laurent had continued to use in its advertisements videos and audio created by Slimane even after the designer had left the brand. A case that, in terms of aesthetics, continues today since on the one hand Anthony Vaccarello has not yet managed to emancipate from the rock-chic aesthetic that Slimane had infused in the Menswear collections of Saint Laurent and, on the other, Hedi Slimane himself has continued to propose the same most famous designs of the brand, nominally the boots Wyatt and the Teddy Jacket, in his new collections for Celine. With the result of creating a creative short circuit in which imitators and imitated ones merge seamlessly: the same that today was created between Vetements and Balenciaga.