Major Street Artists Sue Clothing Brand Guess , Accusing Them of Stealing Their Work

For the second time in recent memory, street artists have accused the clothing brand Guess of swiping their intellectual property, this time for a line of “graffiti inspired” clothing. The suit, which was filed in California’s Central District and first reported Monday by Hyperallergic, was filed by the Danish street artist Patrick Griffin, whose brother Sean tagged under the name “Nexst” and achieved no small amount of attention from New York’s spray-paint and streetwear underground and was called “the most successful Houston artist that most outside of the graffiti world have never heard of” by the Houston Press. Related Articles The crux of the suit comes from Guess’s alleged use of both Sean Griffin’s tag and the tag of another street artist, Robin Ponn, who signed work as “Bates”. The tags appear to be interspersed with a mishmash of streetwear iconography: cassette tapes, street signs, graffiti, and, of course, a spraypainted version of the Guess logo. According to Hyperallergic, Macy’s, which was one of the many vendors selling the graffiti inspired clothing and named in the lawsuit, has pulled the product from their website, though the line is still available on Amazon.com and the shirts in question can still be ...