Entrepreneur Lamont “Tory” Stapleton is calling out Balenciaga for allegedly stealing one of his designs — a black crewneck with the word “FREE” written across the chest in varsity lettering. Stapleton took to his social media to tell his followers what inspired the line, and what happened.
“@balenciaga we need to talk,” he wrote in a caption alongside a video shared on Wednesday. The creator explained that he started his line, Struggle Is Common, back in 2019, “after losing a friend to a long battle with addiction.”
“My goal was to remind people that they’re not alone and to encourage them to face their problems head on if they truly wish to be FREE,” he said.
After he released the black crewneck, Stapleton explained that he wore it to an “an extremely private birthday party in Los Angeles.” It caught the attention of many celebrities at the event, and Stapleton recounted that it sparked “conversations about the meaning behind my sweatshirt.”
Three years later, Stapleton was tagged “in a Vanity Fair video which featured Diddy, now known as LOVE, wearing what they knew to be my design.” People were congratulating the creator, but he was confused.
“I was scratching my head with confusion,” he said.
He was then sent more pictures and videos of celebrities wearing his design, including Da Baby.
“At this point it became apparent that someone had clearly ‘borrowed’ my design, but I had no idea who,” he said.
Friends of Stapleton then led him to the Balenciaga website that showed the brand was allegedly “selling the exact same black crew neck as well as multiple variations of my design for up to 25x the price.”
Stapleton even started receiving ads on social media to buy something he created.
“Then I started receiving targeted ads on my phone trying to sell me what was clearly mine. Strange!” he said in the video.
The creator is now asking followers to urge Balenciaga to contact him.
“I say all that to say, if anyone knows anyone at Balenciaga, can you please have them reach out to me. We need to have a conversation,” he said.
High-fashion brands ripping off Black designers is an unfortunate trend in the industry, and Stapleton wants to put a stop to it.
“All too often, the little people get stepped on by big brands and I just want to ensure that this is not another example of that, but rather just a big misunderstanding. Thank you for listening,” he said.
