WeWoreWhat's Danielle Bernstein Is Suing a Small Business After Allegedly Stealing Yet Another Design

By Maria Sherman | October 19, 2020 | 2:45pm

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WeWoreWhat's Danielle Bernstein Is Suing a Small Business After Allegedly Stealing Yet Another Design

Image:Ben Gabbe for Monse (Getty Images)

WeWoreWhat founder Danielle Bernstein–an influencer best known for contracting covid-19 after partying mask-less in the Hamptons, allegedly stealing a mask design from the small, patent-pending Latina-owned brand By Second Wind, and attempting to pass off “vintage gym shorts” made by a small Australian Etsy shop as her own design—has apparently screwed over yet another small business: Brooklyn lingerie shop The Great Eros.

According to Diet Prada, The Great Eros accused Bernstein’s brand of copying their signature print of nude silhouettes back in Augustm sending her a cease and desist on August 10.. But on October 15, Bernstein blindsided them with a lawsuit “after Jeff Gluck, counsel for The Great Eros, claims were some veiled settlement talks,” according to the fashion gossip site. The suit, filed by Bernstein and her manufacturing company Onia, maintains that “The WWW Silhouettes Design was inspired by the generally ubiquitous concept of silhouette drawings of the human form along with a number of Henri Matisse’s line drawings,” and “does not infringe” or “violate” The Great Eros’ “purported copyright.”

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Take a look below:

Screenshot:Diet Prada/Instagram (Fair Use)

However! The Great Eros provided Diet Prada with “proof” that Bernstein ordered their signature design from them: a gifting request dated August 23, 2018, after Bernstein visited their showroom, and an order from an Onia founder on August 15. “Danielle is taking us for everything we own over a design that she allegedly stole from us and is now suing us to bully us into submission,” The Great Eros posted on their Instagram Story. “Know you didn’t just sue us with this lawsuit, you sued every small independent designer, business owner and artist, and thanks to you, we are finally now united against you.”

“[Danielle Bernstein] secretly filed this lawsuit while pretending to hold settlement talks. I have never seen anything slimier,” The Great Eros lawyer Jeff Gluck told Page Six. “This misguided charade is nothing more than yet another nasty attempt to intimidate and silence independent creatives and small-business owners. She believes that rules don’t apply to her.”

According to TODAY, Bernstein addressed the lawsuit in a now-expired Instagram Story, writing, “A few days ago their attorney contacted us, sharing a lawsuit he intended to file this week in an attempt to push us to settle a meritless claim that we now, begrudgingly, have to fight. I want to clarify that I am ABSOLUTELY NOT seeking financial gain, what we are doing is simply asking the courts to confirm that we did not infringe on an alleged copyright.” She added that her print “was conceptualized and hand-drawn by my team at the end of 2018 and launched in January 2020,” and that “the collection was already two seasons old and had been out in the market for months by the time their claim was made. As we all know, over the last few years, female line drawings have been a market trend. A quick Google search reveals wallpaper, shirts, bathing suits, yoga mats, and even tattoos, and it is clear everyone has had Matisse on their minds, including ShopWeWoreWhat. I personally own several female silhouette decor pieces which served as inspiration, as the theme of this collection was Home.”

Of course, that language sounds eerily familiar. When she was accused of stealing a mask design from the small Latina-owned brand By Second Wind, she said she had been working on that design for months—and therefore, couldn’t have copied them. Same shit, different day.