On the left, a work by Brad Troemel; on the right, a dress from the Vika Gazinskaya Spring 2018 collection.Photo: Courtesy of Brad Troemel

Playing fair and square has taken on new meaning in yet another instance of fashion tapping a source without transparency. Look at the two images and it would be impossible to deny the near-identical resemblance; one features a photo from a series by artist Brad Troemel; the other, patchwork knit sweaters by Vika Gazinskaya from her Spring 2018 collection. Since Troemel posted the comparison to his Instagram on Sunday, there’s been no shortage of commentary—frankly, some quite hostile towards Gazinskaya—addressing an issue that seems to happen with surprising frequency, given how easy it is to trace, identify, and credit source material today. In the midst of the situation, and given that I had written the review, it seemed fair to approach both of them for their version of what happened, posing the same questions to each of them to remain as balanced as possible.  
 
But before proceeding, a little background on the concept behind Troemel’s series, Freecaching, which he exhibited at the Tomorrow Gallery (now Downs & Rose) in November, 2016. Upon realizing that he could no longer afford his studio in New York, he buried the contents in Central Park—but only after taking photos of the pieces and recording their exact locations. As a “certificate of authenticity” he created magnetized puzzles, with each side of each block featuring a randomized color, the geolocation of the buried piece, and an image of the artwork prior to burial, or a contract for ownership. What he exhibited were the jumbled versions—like a hanging version of an unsolved Rubik’s Cube. Ostensibly, collectors could choose to solve the puzzle and dig up the buried work; or they could leave the works stored in the ground and simply appreciate the puzzle for its striking visual impact.
 
And presumably, the random arrangement of colors, numbers, and text was what attracted Gazinskaya who, when she walked me through her collection, showed me an image from Freecaching, neither identifying Troemel, nor the backstory of the graphic. She seemed unaware this was an artist’s work. When I wrote the review, I mentioned the inspirations she cited by name, which included the choreographer William Forsythe.
 
A few days after the review appeared online, Troemel posted a side-by-side comparison and his supporters swiftly expressed their alarm over the similarity, in some cases, ganging up on Gazinskaya. Things turned, well, a little nasty. You need only visit his feed to get a sense of the engagement, which includes comments that Gazinskaya posted, opening her up to further attack by ostensibly implicating herself. Conversely, on her feed, comments on the pieces in question were deleted and disabled—as though the matter could be conveniently unacknowledged. As a response to what she perceived as harassment in his posts, Gazinskaya’s lawyers apparently sent Troemel a cease-and-desist letter.
 
Frankly, it’s easy to sympathize with him; all the effort underlying his dimensional work had been flattened into sweaters that she intended to sell.
 
At this point, what might be considered the most famous example of squares on clothing comes to mind: Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dresses from 1965. Those, along with his designs nodding to Kazimir Malevich and Serge Poliakoff were unquestionably in homage and duly attributed.
 
Troemel in our correspondence contended that what happened constituted something more serious: copyright infringement. “There’s a difference between influence, appropriation, and theft. Influence is taking an element of a source and using it—in combination with a host of other factors—to produce something that is your own. Appropriation is taking a source wholesale, but re-contextualizing its meaning by acknowledging the difference between its original source and your own intentions. Theft is taking a source wholesale, erasing the relationship between the original creator and the source, and deceptively passing yourself off as the original creator.”

It would seem that Gazinskaya wasn’t trying to take credit for the design so much as neglecting to pursue the source of her inspiration and credit him accordingly, if not also run this by him—which would have been ideal. Opting to send a statement instead of answering the questions, she asserted, “I did see the image of one of his art pieces as part of my idea-gathering process, but the image was uncredited, which did not allow me to know with specificity who created all the various images I looked at in my development process. I also expressed my ideas in a different way, using my own creativity to shift around and remove components to change the look and message of the design that Mr. Troemel falsely accuses me of ‘directly copying.’”

However you choose to interpret his text blocks appearing as black lines in her patchwork or, in some examples, a complete echoing of the color scheme, the issue beyond copying is that this seems to happen far too often. As Troemel noted, when posed a question about the social media response: “People are angry because fashion designers do this all the time and it seems like they also get caught every time. The Internet is too effective at tracking this type of stuff down and art isn’t so far from fashion not to have tons of overlapping participants. The vibe seems to be “sheesh, again?”
 
Enter Viktor & Rolf, which was on the receiving end of a claim by Terrence Zhou, a student at Parsons, that the designers had copied the dolls he submitted in his internship application for their haute couture show. The dolls may not be doppelgangers and the timing—Zhou sent his portfolio two months ago according his Instagram post—could be mere coincidence; yet it seemed reasonable of him to take the issue public. An article in WWD quoted a U.S. spokeswoman who countered the accusation with, “For all seasons, all the Viktor & Rolf development and designs are entirely done by the Viktor & Rolf [designers] and the Maison.” Go figure, I also wrote their review. Before the show, they said the foam and stretch wool heads took “a long time” to produce. “It was really a search to find the right shape, the right technique, the right material, the right expression.”

As a reviewer, asking designers for their inspiration or point of departure is probably the most banal but also the most integral question to understanding a collection. On the one hand, I’m asking them to distill their creative process into a few buzzwords or else a forced narrative. On the other, the context is helpful. References can be obscure, even for those of us who could hold our own in an exclusively cultural version of Jeopardy (my fantasy gameshow). Designers have no option but to be fully transparent about their source material; otherwise, and further to Troemel’s point, not only will people call them out, but the general reaction will be unsparing. They’re essentially creating their own negative publicity and then expecting shoppers to feel good about buying into that. Needless to say, both designers and artists put their work out into the world knowing that it is vulnerable to being commercialized in ways that don’t benefit them.
 
The flip side is that support from social media could result in payback of a kind beyond potential compensation for damages. A week has passed since the review went up and arguably, Troemel may have benefited from the saga. The Instagram account known as @DietPrada, a savvy whistleblower on copying within the fashion industry, has come to his defense; he appears to have gained at least 300 new followers; thanks to articles on ARTnews and The Cut, his name and work have become more visible; and who knows, this might even prove inspiration for a new meta series. Meanwhile, Gazinskaya revealed that the sweaters, for all that has transpired, will not be put into production. As she expressed in the statement: “The item that Mr. Troemel is referring to—from which he states I profited greatly—is a sample that was not on sale in any stores, and it will not be produced as buyers found it of low interest.” We can only wonder their reaction had they known about Freecaching and Troemel’s buried treasures.