The $295 Pink Beanie That’s So Popular Even High-Fashion Designers Are Knocking It Off
No one said fashion is original, at least not this season. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a designer who presented a fall 2017 collection that didn’t pull inspiration from a well-known piece of pop culture.
At Moschino, Jeremy Scott put a garbage can lid on a model’s head in the spirit of Sesame Street‘s Oscar the Grouch; at Ashish, a “Nasty Woman” sequined vest pulled from the Thrasher skate company logo; Mrs. Miuccia Prada pulled prints from the artist who created the Breakfast at Tiffany’s movie posters. And that’s only what has happened in the last five days.
But Versace, which held its Milan Fashion Week show on Feb. 24, blatantly ripped off, in this writer’s opinion, the überpopular, $295 pink beanie hat that American designer Alexander Wang presented at his fall 2016 runway show.
The two hats aren’t identical: Wang’s is an angora beanie, and the script is laid over a black background; the Versace hat appears to be made of wool, and the font itself is black. That said, the two are still strikingly similar.
To be fair, Wang doesn’t own the monopoly on pink beanies (see pussy hats). Still, Versace’s hat comes just a year after Wang’s.
The Versace pink “love” beanie was part of a larger collection that emblazoned messages of inclusiveness on everything from oversized scarves to mesh overlays. EQUALITY, LOYALTY, UNIFIED, UNITY, LOVE, POWER, COURAGE. If liberté, egalité, and fraternité are words that evoke the French Revolution, Donatella proposes that this be the uniform of the Versace revolution.
Versace is hitting many of the notes American designers hit during New York Fashion Week. That is, political messaging has boldly and inexorably entered the fall 2017 collections. And apparently, now, so have copycats.
Read more:
Cindy Crawford Stars in Peter Lindbergh-Hosted Supermodel Reunion
Did the ‘Kate Middleton Effect’ Cause the Downfall of This Designer Label?
Hot Mugshot Guy Is Now Walking the Runway
Let’s keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Alexandra Mondalek is a writer for Yahoo Style and Beauty. Follow her on Twitter @amondalek.