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dhb Blok Superstar jersey on Wiggle.co.ukWiggle to investigate plagiarism claim in Ana Nichoola Star-gate row
Online retailer Wiggle has promised to hold a full investigation after it was accused of plagiarism by Anna Glowinski, founder of the women’s cycle clothing brand, Ana Nichoola, an accusation that prompted strong criticism of the business on social media.
In a post to Facebook on Friday evening, Glowinski spoke of being “angry” and “heartbroken” after seeing a product for sale on Wiggle that she believes is a copy of one of her designs that she had previously shown the retailer.
The product for sale on Wiggle has been produced by the retailer’s in-house clothing brand dhb’s Blok range. There's a picture of it above. The men's ersion is currently one of the best-selling men's dhb items on Wiggle.
Glowinski has regularly used stars as a motif in her designs for Ana Nicoola. Here’s one, which we reviewed on road.cc in May 2012.
In her Facebook post, Glowinski, who also tweeted a link to it, said: “18months ago @wiggle bike shop came to my design studio/office and we spent a couple of hours looking at my designs with a view to buy. A year later we talked about a collaboration. The talks went quiet and they brought out their own version. Angry? Yes! Heartbroken? More than I knew was possible! Powerful? Nope.”
The post was widely shared and retweeted, with dozens of comments made in support of Glowinski, some calling for a boycott of Wiggle.
Some pointed out that the star motif itself perhaps owes something to the US national champion's jersey. While those tend to be uniform in size whereas the Ana Nichoola ones vary, some may recall this jersey worn by the United States team at the 1994 FIFA World Cup, sported here by Alexi Lalas.
The online retailer responded with a statement which it tweeted at 6.35pm on Sunday evening, saying:
Anna Glowinski made us aware by email at 23:12 on Friday that she believes Wiggle has plagiarised a design from her range of women’s cycling clothing she showed us in 2013.
The Wiggle colleague Anna e-mailed was on annual leave, though we did pick it up and respond to her at 17:32 on Saturday.
We confirmed that we are taking her claim very seriously and will be investigating fully on Monday. In the meantime Anna had shared her claim and frustration on Social media. We at Wiggle would like to make it clear that we work to the highest ethical standards. If a designer has indeed used Anna’s designs and passed them off as their own then we will be taking full disciplinary action and ensuring that Anna benefits from the design royalties. We too would be upset, if this is indeed what has happened. We will provide an update at 17:00 on Monday. The Wiggle Team.
In a follow-up on Saturday morning to her initial post, Glowinski said: “Wow! It's been really heartening to wake up to such support! Thanks so much! Not sure what I am going to do yet as can't afford a lawyer etc etc blah blah. I'm reading all your comments and hopefully I will hear from wiggle this weekend?! Please keep sharing. Thank you thank you!”
Later the same day, she wrote: “I literally cannot believe the support from the cycling community! I know I am not the first person to ever put stars on something, but to come into my office and then bring out a replica is not design overlap or inspiration. In my opinion it is copying. I don't have copyright on this and not really sure my next move. I guess I will wait until Monday when everyone is back in work and go from there. Will report back. I really appreciate the support and feeling from the people in our community! Thank you!”
Facebook user Alsion Critchley wrote of the Wiggle garment: “I saw this jersey yesterday and instantly thought 'Anna won't be happy about that.' Stars print is definitely associated with her.”
Last year, the government’s Intellectual Property Office said that it planned to make the deliberate copying of a design a criminal offence.
According to a May 2013 article in Design Week, the proposed legislation is aimed at protecting small businesses and independent designers.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- TempleOrion 2 sec ago
Good for reducing the impact of arrows too, apparently (well Samurai horsemen had a similar gizmo)... 🤔
- Rich_cb 1 hour 25 min ago
The mistake is to focus on the US....
- chrisonabike 1 hour 37 min ago
I mean it seems silly to complain in detail when we're firmly in the territory in the UK of "you will have to live with this the rest of your life ...
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Well, according to Endura's website, they make nothing that fits me. (which is interesting because my club skin suit, from Endura, is both too big ...
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Aww, Northwave's marketing team eh? Bless 'em....
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I thought students were supposed to be intelligent?
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She will serve "no more than a half", so 3 years and 4 months and she is walking free. And with the practically non-existent road policing it's...
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Just the other day, Mrs HawkinsPeter remarked that our road seemed a lot quieter without all the rat-running and there's notably more traffic...
- hawkinspeter 6 hours 4 min ago
I was wondering if other countries used some kind of anti-copying technology. One type would be to use something like an RFID chip embedded into...
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Doubly galling when, as has been pointed out here in the past, a binary search would efficiently reveal the time of theft. Triply galling when I...
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72 comments
Let's be frank, Wiggle have only fairly recently started doing anything remotely 'different' with their clothing ranges. Cycling clothing as a whole tends to be more of the same stuff, with minor tweaks, and this years' colour, over and over. Then Anna comes along and starts doing some fairly distinctive stuff. I think Annas kit is about as recognisable as all the Cath Kidston stuff that my wife loves - precisely because it's a little different to the norm. So why would Wiggles' offering look so damn similar?
Well, a pretty comprehensive response from Wiggle there.
I think both designs are a rip off othe '76 (or it might have been '80) Team USA jersey.
Can we expect USA Cycling to sue them both?
Depressing that people can't see past cheap prices, Haribo and marketing to realise what dicks Wiggle are being here. I'm not sure how many times it needs to be pointed out that it's not just a matter of two tops with stars on. I can't work out if these people are just a bit dim or just like siding with the bigger name.
Even more depressing is that these people don't know who Anna is, despite her being far and away one of the coolest people in cycling and dismiss her so easily.
It's a shame, it really is. Hooray for millionaires and venture capitalism! Boo to the awesome, cycling loving, small businesswoman! Feed me haribo and loss leaders!
Regardless of who or what either the designer or the company that supposedly copied them is/ are...
The designer will need to prove that their design is original and copyrighted. I can say as a matter of fact that the stars on a cycling jersey design is an old idea; I once had a Motorola USA champion's jersey in the 1990s (which I think was a Lance Armstrong jersey but never mind).
Anyhoo, the other fact of the matter is that, in clothing design, copying is rampant. I know a designer in Australia who regularly gets trips around the world to buy sample clothes she can take back to design for her company in Oz.
I'm sympathetic to the designer in this case, but there isn't much she can do really. Her design isn't original, and neither is Wiggle's. Unless Wiggle have copied her design exactly then there is no case for them to answer.
I hear Alpha Centauri may be suing them both...
After reading Wiggles response the designer obviously is using the Wiggle name and social media for attention for herself.
Seems like a nobody 'designer' desperate for exposure deciding that a publicity stunt at Wiggles expense is the way to go.
Like WTF! Has this nobody suddenly decided that she owns the copyright to any cycling clothing with stars on it?
Love her no doubt doe eyed "Oh but I can't afford lawyers" social media plea.
Many of the comments to this story have a strong whiff of sexism about them. It is unpleasant.
It seems faintly implausible that designers working in a company which had had so much contact with another designer who was quite well known anyway, were completely unaware of her designs and yet produced something so clearly, erm, shall we say 'inspired' by those other designs. It may not look exactly like a specific anna nichoola jersey but it does look like an anna nichoola jersey. I don't know what the copyright issues around it are but it looks like a rip-off nevertheless.
Have you read their response regarding their audit trail?
The thing is, she doesn't need it. She's doing alright as it is.
Personally I don't really think she's got a case here but that doesn't mean she's just a publicity seeker. She is a designer, and she's not exactly a nobody. Why are you in such a hurry to cast her in such a negative light?
Yep, corporate dickweaseling.
Or, possibly, the truth? That's rather the point to this exercise, isn't it. Hard facts? If their version is true why should they apologise?
Of course, there may be a rebuttal coming. Wiggle are screwed if their audit trail is not water tight. I'm sure this isn't the end of it.
In my line of work I'm occasionally required to provide an absolutely detailed timeline of events, for root cause analysis etc. Wiggle's response - and, notably, the statement that no-one in the dhb design team had any knowledge of anything sourced from Ms Glowinski - is as categorical as you could ever get.
Multiple sized and multi-coloured stars, 'randomly' all over a jersey. Same-sized and same-coloured stars arranged in rows over the top of a jersey. These are not the same things.
I'm sorry, but I hope Ms Glowinski will enjoy her publicity.
Telling. They also state that their design team hadn't had sight of any of Anna's designs. Cycle clothing designers had never seen any of her designs? I find that statement extraordinarily hard to believe. There is absolutely no way they don't study the market. In that women's cycling clothing market Ana Nichoola is very well known.
Still, Wiggle will carry on raking it in, I won't be buying from them ever again though.
That's not quite what they said. And surely the same applies to Ana Nichoola- are you saying AG had never seen a jersey design with stars on before she designed hers? Because there are plenty about.
I can sort of see why she might be upset but a lot of the vitriol on here seems to be based on the assumption that the actual rights and wrongs don't matter as much as the opportunity to give a shoeing to a heartless corporate giant on behalf of a feisty, in-it-for-the-love-of-it independent.
If she was a small business woman, tree huggin, cycle loving free spirt why did your goddess of design sell her business and them go beggin the corporate nasty business Wiggle for a job?
What she does is up to her, I'm not going to answer for her. Suffice to say she's no 'unknown'.
Replace Wiggle with Specialized or Rapha and we'd have seen this go down a whole different path.
Don't be silly, stars are far too brash for Rapha.
I can understand why Anna may feel miffed, but from my perspective I see the following...
- A star covered jersey
- A jersey with a split design, plain on top, horizontal stripes below.
Now, if I look at those designs and say... no, they're not quite what I'm looking for... I like the idea of stars, I like the idea of a split design (horizontal stripes)... it would be great if they could some way be combined.
If I then went away and combine the two concepts into a new design, is that still Anna's design, or is this new design mine?
I'm guessing in an ideal world you'd say Anna, can you somehow combine these two designs for us please? But with in-house designers, and this being business, you're probably not going to...
In summary, I see it like this.
Wiggle go to look at some designs... those designs are not quite right, but they do help them identify what they do want... they then go off and design what they want.
I do not see this as plagiarism.
Can someone walk me through the logic of being on Wiggle's side on this one please?
Anna Glowinski was producing women's cyclewear for a few years.
It featured a hell of a lot of stars. Jerseys with stars, jackets with stars, tights with stars, gloves with stars, stars, stars and more fucking stars.
The Ana Nichoola brand became quite well known to many people in cycling (except to readers of this website it seems) and they even managed to get their star smattered cycling gear stocked in stores, including Harrod's. You know, that underground and alternative gaff in Knightsbridge.
Whilst her star based designs are attracting plenty of attention Wiggle think to themselves "We like the cut of Anna's jib, we should get her to design some gear for us, we could probably turn a decent little profit on it". Nothing wrong there, business is business and neither Wiggle or Anna are some sort of 'Cyclistes sans Frontieres' types, they all want to make a living.
Wiggle rock up to Anna's office/studio and look at Anna's work, and I'm going to go out on a limb here, I'd imagine there was a lot of star based designs. Given that Wiggle knew what Anna's work was like before they approached her I doubt very much that they would have been surprised to see stars featured. They'd probably have been more surprised if there were no stars.
The promise of working together and collaborating on designs goes cold and quiet, again fair enough, business is business and perhaps Wiggle decided they weren't so keen on using Anna's star based designs and wanted to go down a different route for their women's jersey and opted instead for the radically different jersey which features, rather surprisingly, a bunch of stars similar to the ones that first attracted Wiggle to Anna's work.
And somehow Anna is the one in the wrong?
I feel like I'm not getting the joke.
I'm not, but there's an increasing use of social media, particularly the cycling ones I read, to present something as the entire story. Our roles should be to question what we read to ascertain whether the information is as it should be. Personally, many of the recent reports about convictions (or lack thereof) have omitted information which, for me, is important.
Anna Glowinski is a brilliant designer and no one was doing women's cycle wear like her Ana Nichoola range. In my opinion it was innovative in its designs and has proven very popular amongst female riders looking for something that's not the usual 'women like pink' stuff! I can certainly see why people would want to cash in on that.
Just realised I'm wearing said Ana Nichoola Star jersey in my profile pic...
In the US, designers must be very careful how much of a portfolio they show to a retailer or collaborator. I have talked with top-tier designers who have had to halt sales meetings similar to what was described here when they felt the clothing brand had someone in the meeting taking notes (mental or otherwise) on the designer's work for the express purpose of copying.
As a intellectual property lawyer, I can tell you that in the US there is very little legal recourse for this kind of a scenario. The social media route that Ana took is one of the best options here.
I have to go with Wiggle on this one...
That snow cat jacket looks cool. Anna should release mens versions!
Go glow!
Isn't it. I like her star one as well. And the wiggle one. And their spotty ones.
Not as much as my Castelli ones though
Aww, I'm conflicted now.
Doesn't it? It would accentuate your breasts beautifully.
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