During this time, the situation around the world is difficult. The Covid-19 Pandemic has got almost the entire world sitting on quarantine, or as I prefer to put since in Malaysia we don't call it quarantine, Movement Control Order (MCO). It seems in these difficult times that we are starting to see the dark sides of many people we have not seen before. Most recent news in Malaysia - The dUCk Scarves Co-founder, Vivy Yusof, has found herself and her brand under hot waters again. And this time, it's not about her comments.
A few weeks ago, I covered the story about my personal take on the issue surrounding Vivy and her friend, Aleeya (both are entrepreneurs) commenting about their way of degrading the lower income community, which I reiterate, the whole thing was blown out of proportions and Vivy needs to hire herself a professional PR Executive/Manager. I might like to add that this new PR should also be hired for her brand. Any who, this time Vivy and her Duck Scarves brand has come under some plagiarism fire...ouch.
The Duck Scarves recently released their new collection, The Artsy Duck - the new collection of design that is dedicated in tribute to splashes of colours, artistry and creativity. The only issue her is, someone who happens to have also a freelance designer/entrepreneur, Nia Atasha (SleepyLlama) who went on her personal Instagram account and call out on The Duck Group of their latest design being a plagiarism of her design of the same theme and I'm afraid to say it, some are also the same designs.
What do I take if this? Honestly, I applaud Vivy for dedicating part of the sale of this new collection to a good cause. It is a very noble effort from her. But all those effort is now just gone to waste especially during this beautiful month of Ramadhan as I cannot help but believing that her brand has indeed committed plagiarism. The similarity of the designs are almost identical (even the promo pictures). I don't think Vivy herself is the creative designer for her brand but the fact that it is still her brand that is carrying the designs and the products, is accountable to this issue. For anyone who have been following her IG account will notice that she is aware of the situation and has tried to clear the air by denying everything and even posted e-mails to indicate that this beautiful idea was concocted back even before SleepyLlama's scarves (I don't buy it). It is ashamed that, considering how big her brand is, she should have known better than to have her own team of Research and Development to help her foresee this issue from happening. And the fact that instead of putting a stop to this whole mess by taking down the collection and reevaluate it with something more original, she went the ignorant approach and try to bring down the accuser. This is where I draw the line with someone like Vivy.
I am not a reality TV junkie but I don't sometimes take my free time to watch a little bit of Vary Cavallari and Keeping Up With The Kardashians and not because I am madly in love with their drama, but considering that I am aspiring to be an entrepreneur like them (I am also looking up to Vivy but that seems to change soon...), I want to learn a thing or two about managing a business and sustaining a brand like The Kardashians, Lauren Conrad and Kristin Cavallari. An episode of the Kardashian show, Kim K West was once caught in a hell storm of hate after launching her shape wear which at first was named Kimono. She was accused of culture appropriation and disrespecting the people of Japan and their culture of the Kimono dress. The first thing she did was taking down the collection which caused a lot of losses and reevaluate her strategy. In the end, she renamed the shape wear to Skims. Same with Kylie who got under fire after her small fallout with former bff, Jordyn who kissed her big sister's baby Daddy, after her lip kit collection that was inspired by her friendship with Jordyn, went on sale after the scandal. She too decides to take out the lip kit from sale in order to protect her name and her brand. Honestly, Vivy should be watching these shows and learn how to protect her name and ultimately her brand. Defending the issue does not make everything better. Truly, this is where I emphasized on the proposal for her to hire a PR agent or manager to assist her especially at times like these. In less than two months, her name is dragged in mud and unfortunately, it is her own doing. As much as I would like to blame it on her background of being born on a silver platter and never being used to be on the other side of the circle she is sitting comfortably in, I know for a fact that both her husband and herself are intelligent people. This defensive act is starting to get to me and truly with her acting like this, especially not protecting Nia who happens to be a smaller entrepreneur compared to her (even though she is just as filthy rich as Vivy), just rubs me off the wrong. I would have a bigger respect for her should she just apologised and take down the entire collection and reprimand whoever the designer of the collection is and of course reevaluate her next action in order to not only put her brand in heat but also the organisation that this collection was dedicated to. It is such a shame to see someone so successful (and rich) to act so arrogantly and ignorantly towards the community that in the end, are partly the ones that brought her the revenue. Truly, from reading on this matter, I really have picked up a lot to prepare myself on becoming a future entrepreneur.
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