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Jan Kedves
Designers who are copied can get upset about it or see it as a strange form of deference. After all, other designers apparently find their own work so inspiring that they accept being accused of creative theft. Errolson Hugh has lost count of the number of times his ideas have graced the catwalks of other brands over the past 20 years. A particularly striking example: in 2014, Gucci presented an outdoor anorak with two parallel zips at the front; in between, in the middle of the stomach, is a pocket that fits a mobile phone. The design was adopted 1:1 from an Acronym anorak from 2008. Acronym is the name of the label that Hugh designs. “I was already annoyed about Gucci back then,” he says. “Not even because they copied us, but because they did it so badly. The hood didn’t fit at all!”