Founder Takes Issue With Zara’s Shirt

A MATTER OF WORDS: Less than a week after airing claims that Zara knocked off his company’s name and preferred font, Every Other Thursday founder Ethan Glenn has reeled in more customers and greater brand awareness.

Rather than formally appeal to Zara or take legal action against the retailer, he posted a video on TikTok alleging “Zara stole my shi!” comparing a black Every Other Thursday baseball cap with a white T-shirt imprinted with “Every Other Sunday.” As of Friday afternoon, the video had been viewed more than 257,100 times.

That is a pretty big viewing for the Toronto, Canada-based entrepreneur, who started the company 18 months ago. In an interview, he said the issue was the retailer has created a T-shirt with “pretty much the exact same slogan as one of our bestselling hats, down to the font and everything. One of his followers tipped him off with a DM that included a photo of the shirt in question from a Zara store in the U.K. with a $25 price tag on it.

Executives at Zara did not respond immediately Friday to a request for comment.

After sharing his grievance on social media earlier this week, Glenn said he has heard from a few people, who have had similar things happen to them. Others have been messaging and posting in support of small designers like Glenn. “There has been a huge flood of comments from people who are just sharing their distaste and disappointment for brands like Zara for doing this.”

Within 48 hours of posting the video, Every Other Thursday’s site traffic attracted between 5,000 and 10,000 viewers, versus a typical day of 5,000 viewers. Many people reached out to inquire when the $32.64 black baseball hat would be restocked. A production run of 2,000 units is underway, an increase from the a 500-unit run for spring, which had sold out in about 15 minutes, according to Glenn. “Regardless of the Zara fiasco, the products sell out very quickly,” he said.

As for why Glenn decided not to approach the company directly, he said, “I know Zara has a track record for ripping off a lot of small designers and small businesses. Just knowing from previous encounters and different people having issues like this, the things that they can do are very minimal compared to a large company like Zara. At the end of the day, intellectual property is quite vague in terms of what is considered mine. It is just a font. It was more about brand recognition and Zara [allegedly] continually ripping off people’s designs.”

Had Zara used the exact wording of his company’s name, he said he would have been more inclined to contact the company. The Every Other Thursday moniker is meant to being paid biweekly, the idea being that every other Thursday you get a paychecks and might be looking to buy something for yourself, Glenn said.

As for his decided route, Glenn said, “I went into it knowing nothing major would come out of it, but I knew that the brand recognition could go up. In general, I think it is good to call out large companies for doing stuff like this especially now coming out of COVID[-19]. There are a lot of designers, small brands and new labels that are creating really interesting and unique products with an ever-growing customer base. It’s sad to see large companies not putting any effort into their own design and just ripping off smaller labels and brands to do the work for them with no credit.”

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