Urban Outfitters is no stranger to controversial T-shirts. You might remember the ’04 election, when the store’s VOTING IS FOR OLD PEOPLE logo had get-out-the-vote groups in high dudgeon. Or its EVERYONE LOVES A JEWISH GIRL design (speckled with dollar signs, natch) which drew the ire of the Anti-Defamation League. Or its TAKE PILLS AND CHILL shirt, which enraged anti-drug groups. Or its NEW MEXICO, CLEANER THAN REGULAR MEXICO slogan, which angered folks south of the border.
Now it’s pissed off Johnny Cupcakes. The local clothing and accessories designer claims that Urban Outfitters has brazenly cribbed one of his T-shirt designs. Although the chain was shamed into yanking the aforementioned shirts from shelves, Cupcakes is not holding out hope that he’ll be vindicated. He says he’s learned the hard way that, for small, independent designers, corporate appropriation like this is par for the course.
John Earle, who’s 23 and lives in Hull, started making T-shirts as a lark a few years back. When co-workers at Newbury Comics nicknamed him Johnny Cupcakes for no particular reason, he responded by silk-screening a T-shirt, emblazoned with a cupcake-and-crossbones logo. It was a hit. So he started selling them out of his trunk. After his hardcore band, On Broken Wings, got signed and started touring, he designed more and more shirts with the cupcake motif, dropping them in boutiques and hipster haunts across the country. They’ve since been worn by Britney Spears and Steve-O from Jackass, and Earle has quit the band to design full-time. “There’s really no meaning behind it,” he says of his icing-covered icon. “Guys think it’s funny, girls think it’s cute. It’s just a symbol that everybody likes.”
Including, apparently, Urban Outfitters. As his shirts’ popularity snowballed, Earle started thinking about greater exposure. “I didn’t know too much about the whole fashion industry. I didn’t know where I wanted to target my products. So I sent a few packages out to different stores all over the place.” Urban Outfitters was the biggest of the retailers he queried. (His aim was to have them sell his shirts, not to contract with them for design work.) But then he had some second thoughts. “Maybe it’s not the best idea to get in a store that big, that’s gonna water down my product.”
Too late. Earle says that he sent the chain his designs in 2004, and they were in touch with him right away, keenly interested. “They were asking me if it would be okay to change the color and the ink, and they wanted to see if they could change my design around if I were to agree and sell it to them. But I said no. And I decided that Urban Outfitters wouldn’t be the best store for me to put my stuff in, because I wanted to be a little more exclusive.”
So he begged off. And he didn’t hear much from Urban Outfitters after that. But a few days ago, Earle got an e-mail from a friend who works in an UO branch. At first the friend had been excited that the store had received a shipment of Johnny Cupcakes designs, a bomber plane unleashing a payload of sweet treats. But a closer look at the tee, whose design was all but identical but in different colors, revealed the label for the store’s clothing line, Urban Renewal.
“I was kind of iffy at first; I didn’t want to get worked up for nothing,” Earle says. “But then she sent me the T-shirts. It was almost the exact same thing. The plane was facing a different way, they put cherries on the cupcakes and added a teeny bit more detail.”
Earle sent an e-mail to Urban Outfitters on Monday night, “politely asking them to take the shirt off the shelves before we go with any further action,” but he’s yet to hear back.
In a statement supplied to the Phoenix just before deadline, an Urban Outfitters spokesman writes that the T-shirt is part of a tripartite “anti-weapon” series. “The anti-weapon concept was then given to one of our vendors who in turn executed the graphic. The vendor involved is one that we have a long-standing relationship with and is one who functions primarily as a licenser and thus by nature is extremely sensitive to issues of original art. We have a strong tenure of working closely with young, local designers and small brands alike. In addition, we have the utmost respect and admiration for young, urban companies and the creative individuals, designs, and products that drive them.”
Earle is skeptical, to say the least. He’s thought about contacting lawyers, but recognizes that this foe comes in one size only: extra-large. “They’re a multi-million-dollar company. They know what they’re doing, and they do this all the time. They change their designs around just enough so that they can’t get in trouble.”
In keeping with the happy connotations of his iconic namesake, Johnny Cupcakes is keeping his chin up. “I’ve been trying to look on the bright side of this. I’ve had a bunch of people telling me that you’re not an official clothing line until your brand gets knocked off.”
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On the Web:
Johnny Cupcakes: www.johnnycupcakes.com
