Banksy Accuses Fashion Brand Guess For Illegal Use Of His Artwork

Street and world-renowned artist Banksy has hit out on social media accusing fashion brand Guess for using his artwork without permission. In an Instagram post, the artist calls for shoplifters to go to the Guess store on London’s Regent Street. The artist writes: “They’ve helped themselves to my artwork without asking, how can it be wrong for you to do the same to their clothes?” The artist currently has 11.8 million followers.

According to The Art Newspaper, Guess has not responded to the post; but did close the store and has obscured the artwork - Banksy’s iconic Flower Thrower. The display is as a result of a collaboration between Guess and Brandalised, a company that licences recognisable graffiti designs.

Copyright lawyer Liz Ward, founder of Virtuoso Legal, told BBC News that Guess "appear[s] to have legitimately sourced the Banksy artwork via a third party, namely Brandalised, who say they have rights to commercialise and use Banksy's artwork on goods.” She added: "It isn't known if Banksy approved or even knew about this deal. If he did know about it, then perhaps his comments are there to create some kind of guerrilla marketing campaign. If he didn't know about it, then he must be quite annoyed, especially as such mainstream companies and brands don't accord with his anti-establishment views.”