Not Faier - celebrity Sam Faiers accused of ripping off small clothing brand

An English celebrity has been accused of ripping off a small clothing brand, basing her new clothing line’s designs on a brand’s free samples that they sent to her.

Laura Newman, who runs the children's clothing company Forever Sewing, shared text messages sent between her and Samantha Faiers.

The messages go back as far as two years, showing that Faiers was asking Newman to send her dozens of items of clothing for her son and promising to give her business plenty of exposure on her reality show “Mummy Diaries”.

Newman was surprised to find out later on that Faiers was launching her own brand of baby clothes, My Little Darlin, with designs that bear a striking similarity to hers. Available from Forever Sewing and My Little Darlin are tracksuits that are of a similar shade of colour, with two monogrammed alphabets on the left chest.

This is an interesting problem which can be viewed a few ways. One is that a small business chose to send free products over two years to a celebrity, who in turn promoted their brand for free, and the brand should be grateful for the amount of growth they had due to the celebrity’s efforts.

Another is of a small brand that has been sending free products to a celebrity who eventually copied their designs, and led the launch of her new clothing line with their copied designs – what a slap in the face!

Meantime, Faiers is already on a PR offensive, she said during a family holiday in the Maldives that she would donate to charity instead of giving presents to her children.