This is a heartfelt outcry about copying, about design stealing, about lack of vision, lack of creativity. You know, theft. Because that's what copying someone's design(s) really is. Whatever the industry, whatever the product... Stealing is just that - stealing. But I never thought it would happen in the industry I now call home! Surely we are an industry where empathy and integrity are as interwoven into the fabric of our community as the yarns in our wraps, yes??
Many moons ago, I started (with much trepidation) a little online shop called Maverick Baby. Tentatively, and over time, I contacted Easycare, Didymos and Girasol to ask if I may stock their woven wraps. To my delight and wonder, they agreed. To say I was bowled over would be an understatement. For starters, Didymos and Girasol were the remarkable makers of the very first two woven wraps I ever owned (and still do - they are my legacy wraps); it felt incredible - to think that the journey of enveloping my daughter in fabrics so precious had brought me to the point of bringing even more folks into the world of a tradition so relatively new to western culture and yet so valuable to our society... Never mind my online shop, I felt so part of such an incredibly supportive baby carrying community; one which loved, cared for and carried not only our babies, but us as mothers as well...
That journey took me further than I could ever have imagined. It's thanks to companies like Didymos and Girasol, to whom I am ever indebted, that I became a photographer; my creative vision was seen and supported in an industry where hearts were always in the right place and, most importantly, those hearts showed purpose and empathy.
Girasol Ardent
Fast forward to the beginning of 2016 and, holy moly, how things have been tarnished - by one company - seemingly overnight. Remembering a culture of mutual respect and co-operation, I now am horrified to discover a violation of these previously-held industry-wide values - perpetrated by a Russian company (purporting to be Italian and which shall remain nameless - I'm definitely not going to give them any press!), but which is causing a big ole outcry within the babywearing community, and for good reason - it's stealing designs from a 30+ year old woven wrap company, Girasol; a company with heritage, with values, whose beautiful woven wraps, produced in the traditional slow manufactured way, support the skills of local artisans in Guatemala - it's a company long-admired in the babywearing industry.
You might be able to reproduce someone's designs, but you can never reproduce the heritage, the values, the story that come with the originals. Reproducing someone's designs is cheap; cheap because you don't have to take the time and energy to come up with your own, but also cheap because that's how people think who are just in something for the money; they don't care about integrity, about their customers or their customers' stories; it's all about bottom line. I'm cross, can you tell?? I feel violated. And if I feel violated, I can only imagine what the Girasol wrap designers must feel. Theft may bring fleeting glory and profit, but story, values and heritage? Well, they will always win our hearts in the end...