First Gucci copies Dapper Dan for its Spring 2018 collection, and now it seems another designer brand has looked to hip hop for design inspiration. Enter Balenciaga, whose Spring 2018 collection includes a shirt decorated with B’s reminiscent of the Ruff Ryder logo.
Ruff Ryder founding member Swizz Beatz was the first to point the similarity out on Instagram, writing, “@balenciaga we must have a talk about this Ruff Ryder shirt ASAP 🤔 Dapper Dan with Gucci now this 🤔 thoughts ?????? Blessings.” We gotta love Instagram for always calling people out!
The Ruff Ryder logo features a Robust R, whose descending strokes, if fused together, could look like a B.
We are all inspired by each other, especially in a fluid creative world. But sadly, as we are not on an even playing field, borrowing from the underrepresented ‘minority’ culture without acknowledgement skews predatory.
Now we are left to see if Balenciaga acknowledges their inspiration and decides to work with Ruff Ryders on a capsule (read about Gucci’s atonement here). Or will they just whistle on and conduct business as usual?
Time will tell.
What do you think?
*UPDATE:
Once again, Swizz Beatz took to Instagram, this time to providing the pic of the original Ruff Ryders logo shirt from the year 2000, with the the phrase ‘RUFF RYDERS RYDE OR DIE’ repeatedly emblazoned in red.
Now you be the judge. Did Balenciaga blatantly rip off not only the Ruff Ryders logo, but the entire shirt design?
Thoughts?