 Good evening and welcome to NewsClick. This evening we have with us Gurpreet who is one of the co-founders of the store called People Tree. Hello Gurpreet, welcome. So we are here today to talk about some of your designs which were plagiarized by a big international brand called Christian Dior. So how did it come to your notice that Christian Dior had actually stolen some of your designs? Actually it's not designs, we've actually taken one design and it came to my notice because a friend who's a partner in printing, I mean we do block printing together, natural dyeing block printing in Rajasthan. She watched me an image of the cover of Elle magazine on in which I mean there's Sonam Kapoor wearing a Dior garment gown and the print is almost a complete take off of a print we have been doing for 20 years you know. So somebody else had what's happened to her and she in turn forwarded to me and that's how we came to know. So and what was your reaction to it? Well of course I mean I was very shocked. I was completely surprised that such a big company needs to take a design of such a small little you know setup that we are. We are mostly really not in big business neither are we in the big fashion industry that is not our thing at all. We actually printing and design are actually part of a wider philosophy of work that we do. Now we don't do only garments, we do exhibitions, we do museums, we do book covers. So we are luckily a studio really. The outlet people tree that is a shop is just one avatar of ourselves right. So it's very surprising that such a big company and can hire so many designers should be interested in this. But on the other level I realize it's a very good design. It's a very powerful design and we have always been ahead of our times. I mean we are doing a design which is to do with yoga where before Modi and Co started making a big racket about it because yoga we realize this part of our philosophy is part of something that people practice and do in India. And I guess for Dior maybe it was just oh a great design you know and yoga is very popular now and every Indians very proud of how we do yoga and all this great money making thing. So I guess that's what they did but I am very shocked. You can make they could have made their own design anytime. So I don't own yoga, I don't own yoga prints but this one is such an out and I would say copy that it's unmistakably so you know. So there's no if and but like thing about it. Even so even with the color I mean the color that that particular dress I have no idea which other colors they've done it in. But the picture I've seen of the cover of that magazine it's it's a red color and other people have posted posted us pictures of models wearing it abroad on the show on the runway you know. So it's very much part of the 2018 runway correction and it's the same the same you know these two figures are very much yes they put in one or two other figures but this expression of this man's face is unmistakably if you see the what they have used it's unmistakably this one. And have you been able to get in touch with anyone at Christianity or what has the action been from from your end? Well the thing is straight off of course there was a lot of controversy all our friends who know our staff and others who don't know but don't know of us and many you know independent designers, entrepreneurs and all they're very shocked and there was a discussion on social media that you know should it be just through shaming on social media should it be some kind of other actions some legal notice some message some mail so this little thing has been going on even now a lot of articles have been written and so we are considering I mean and some people have directly messaged and contacted them. They have they have put on their pages on the you know social media pages and stuff like that I have not heard of any response as such except for one maybe I think somebody put a message and they said we'll get back to you and but that's it no comment like that and I guess the next thing which we are considering is legal action I mean legal in the sense send them a legal note from notice from a lawyer or something like that which is definitely something we're looking into. Can you tell us a little bit about this print itself and the kind of effort that goes into these prints and so when we started about working with these about 20 years ago it was something that a couple of friends of ours Dindas collective they're called Meeta and Sunny. Meeta and Sunny through Oxfam approached us to do a range of t-shirts for young people as an effort to revive this craft as well as make young people you know realize what a fabulous craft we have and contemporize these things but with us the idea was to actually go back to the source do not to not hide the inspiration for the print right so we brainstormed and we came up on a range of designs that we'd like to do in block printing okay one of them was this yoga design because it was also like I said for us people tree at that time was a way of making young people look at Indian culture afresh to look at crafts afresh to know that they're always contemporary they're always fashionable they're always fair trade they're always environmentally more sound all the range of things that we felt that that excited us about these things right so so do you think Dior actually has gone through this degree or they've just machine there is a machine print thing there's a complete machine print yeah never going to do that client doesn't go for these things the client doesn't want some faded t-shirt the client doesn't want something that doesn't last forever I mean Dior and all of what are the what is the west want they want immortality whereas handwork is never immortal it's all organic it all will go to the earth it is it's a natural thing nothing is identical you know the west always looking for identical haja t-shirt jee jee ekdom identical leh so no work like that sorry but that doesn't stop them from taking a design and making it in a factory and do you think even as a designer it's the one is that they've stolen a pattern but also the process the complete disregard for the kind of process not that the process probably doesn't matter to them fashion does the thing is that if it had been one of the many designs and we do many I mean we're quite prolific that way we just sort of keep creating and enjoy that the thing is then it wouldn't have mattered but I think this one being so sort of what should I say so classically typical of people tree you know it's such a essentially known among people as a people tree print it really became a symbol of kind of symbol of a protest in a sense of these big big brands following smaller enterprises in this kind completely you know ridiculous way all right thank you so much go free thanks so that's all we have time for today at news click let's hope that international brands are a little more conscious when they think about copying blatantly copying designs from independent designers who seem to put in a lot of effort into making these designs thank you that's all today at news click