KAI Collective has sent Boohoo a Cease & Desist Letter requiring that they stop selling products that unlawfully infringe their copyright. They have also demanded £30,000 in damages plus legal costs. They have until 22nd February to comply.
According to Fisayo Longe, Creative Director of KAI in a recent Instagram post: “In July 2019, after nearly three years, I decided to design very unique prints to differentiate Kai and build a stronger brand identity. I collaborated with @grapespatternbank and that was how the print, now known as Gaia, came to life.
@boohoo has since launched its own Gaia rip-off. Led by Mahmud Kamani, a billionaire, the Boohoo group owns Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing and others. As many have complained, they often appropriate designs from small independent brands.
For KAI, Gaia is not just colours, lines and patterns. It is soul and identity. We design to for women to feel their most confident.
Before we launched the orange colorway in June 2020, I was uncertain about how it would be received. I had never seen a print like it. Obviously, I had no reason to worry and Gaia is now being heavily imitated. Boohoo has gone as far as to copy our print almost identically. That is unacceptable. Seeing how much Gaia was being imitated, I obtained design registration in the UK and EU, with US copyright pending. They will not profit illegally off, of our intellectual property and most certainly not with a print that we have legally protected.
Business practices that line the pockets of a billionaire businessman and his sons off, of the ideas, struggles, sacrifice and pure hard work of young black female designers are racist and sexist. You are exploiting and economically disempowering us.
We have already spent thousands in legal costs at this stage and it is easy to see why small brands don’t bother defending themselves – it’s unaffordable! However, after years of graft and sweat, we refuse to be stolen from in this way, and we take reputational damage very seriously.
I advise Boohoo to do the right thing and stop selling their copies of our print, and pay us.
I will keep you updated; please help spread this far and wide.“
