Forever 21 Rips Off Kanye West's 'Life of Pablo' Merch

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Jun 21, 2016

Kanye West continued his journey into the fashion world earlier this year alongside the release of his latest LP The Life of Pablo, tapping Cali Thornhill DeWitt to design merchandise for the album's larger than life Madison Square Garden launch. Figuring the design was too iconic to pass up, American fashion retailers Forever 21 have started selling oddly similar T-shirts themselves.

Retailing for $32, the shirt in question comes from "cutting edge men's fashion" design company Simon De Cyrene. Available in black or "brick" colour, the shirt's back graphic reads "Simon De Cyrene for the World" on the back.

"Observing where cutting edge men's fashion is heading, we saw a need for affordable luxury and decided forward fashion needs to be made accessible to the majority," the designer's website reads. 

To us, it reads, "We saw Kanye's pricy shirts and decided to incorporate their design in our slightly more affordable product."

While co-opting designs from luxury brands to make them more affordable is nothing new, the piece of Pablo merch this is based on didn't cost much more than your average arena concert tee, as you can see above.

Of course, the design generated some negative reaction when it hit social media earlier today.
 

And as GQ points out, while Kanye's Pablo merch was inspired by DeWitt's work for streetwear brand BornxRaised, he was compensated for his design.   

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