L.A.M.E. – Gwen Stefani sues.

Sure, many if not most celebrities have copied something from others, but Gwen is worse than most. When I first heard No Doubt, the first thing I thought about Gwen’s voice was “Oh great, another female ska singer who tries to sing just like that. Boring!”.  

Her clothing, accessories, and make-up is just generic copying of cultures: 
-She stole generic trends from subcultures: She normally dresses like your typical teenaged alternative culture chick (punk/rude girl/goth/raver/freak/etc) who hangs out at the mall or at show. Yes, we dressed like this before No Doubt’s “Tragic Kingdom” came out. To most of the mainstream culture unaware of the alternative scene, Gwen was original and some even thought she invented this style. The truth is, a lot of this was already out of style and overdone in the subculture, and Gwen re-hashing it a couple years later was just a joke to us. Even in middle school, I thought Gwen’s style was equivalent to when Seventeen magazine put out articles/pictures about “How to dress like a rock chick”.  Her style is not very original and it’s watered-down.
-She has stolen from Jamaicans, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians. (See the article above “The Gwen Stefani Rant!” for some evidence of this if you don’t remember or just plain didn’t notice this before). 
-At red carpet events, she wears very typical 1940’s fashion or complete Marilyn Monroe rip offs. This is much of what the L.A.M.B. (L.A.M.E.) line has. Wal-Mart and cheap mall stores (such as Rave, Divah, and Forever 21) have been selling basically the same things as L.A.M.B for years and for much cheaper.
-Her Harajuku Lovers line of clothing is a bad rip-off of clothing and accessories that already exist in Japan! She does a bad job of just copying off styles that already exist – either clothing sold in stores in Japan or looks that real Harajuku girls created themselves. Calling her dancers “Harajuku” girls is an insult to the real ones. 

Yes, I realize she’s not the only fashion designer or singer to steal things from others. But don’t sue a company for doing the same thing when you are guilty of it, too. Gwen most likely would never admit that she steals ideas.
 At least Forever 21 is known for being a cheap place to buy knock-offs. Which brings me to my next point…

We could discuss whether or not it is right to sell knock-offs at an affordable price so that the less wealthy can afford the clothing. And we could discuss whether or not the designs were even stolen from her clothing line since the designs already existed before she created her line.  
But let’s just pretend that she did create completely original designs. How often do you  hear about real, reputable, respected high fashion designers suing? You rarely, if ever, hear about them doing this. So why is Gwen – not a reputable or highly respected designer – doing it?

Miranda (Meryl Streep) from “The Devil Wears Prada” explains it like this:
“This… ’stuff’? Oh… ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.”

A cheap-looking tank top that I’ve basically seen being sold at Divah, Rave, and Forever 21 four years ago is being sold  by L.A.M.B. for 138.75. Pathetic.