Lizzo has been a champion of body positivity and an overall boss when it comes to her unabashed support of the LGBTQ community. She has been a staunch advocate for personal empowerment, diversity, and inclusion. Lizzo’s brand YITTY, a shapewear brand which has partnered with Fabletics, is steadily becoming a household name. With over 672,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 400,000 on TikTok, the shapewear brand has exploded and attracted queer and hetero influencers alike. But recent allegations that the brand has “ripped off” designs from a smaller, queer-led brand may lead to a YITTY shapewear controversy that nobody saw coming or anticipated.
In a statement released on March 30, the reps for YITTY say that “YITTY believes in radical self-love for people of all gender identities—including the trans, nonbinary, gender-fluid and gender non-conforming communities that have been chronically underserved. The brand is tapping its expertise to create styles that serve those very same communities.”
On Transgender Visibility Day, YITTY announced that they are releasing a line of gender-affirming shapewear. For many, this announcement garnered excitement and anticipation. But this excitement is quickly turning into questions about the origin of the ideas, designs, and even the marketing concept used in the YOUR SKIN campaign. Since the announcement of YOUR SKIN by YITTY, murmurs began circulating across social media that YITTY may have stolen designs from Urbody. You can see the Twitter thread addressing this controversy here.
In a statement released by Urbody, the organization expressed shock and disappointment at the alleged theft of the company’s designs.
“With the announcement of “YOUR SKIN” by Yitty last week, we’re left feeling disappointed, hurt, and taken advantage of. YOUR SKIN announced itself with strikingly similar creative, copy, and designs as Urbody, from the name to the products. But our disappointment isn’t primarily rooted in feeling copied; it’s coming from the reality that the trans community, time and time again, is overlooked and marginalized—even when we have valuable experiences, talents, and expertise to contribute,” read the Urbody statement.
@wtfoffashion It is beautiful to see gender affirming clothing becoming more mainstream and accessible, but not at the expense of existing brands that are trans-owned and operated! It’s always important to be mindful of genuinely incorporating and implementing inclusivity at the core, which inherently means hiring a diverse workforce. In this case, Yitty, Lizzo’s shapewear brand, could have and should have collaborated with UrBody to uplift the brand and community rather than just taking UrBody’s designs for ‘research and development’ #genderinclusion #genderaffirming #genderaffirmingclothing #genderinclusivefashion #genderinclusive ♬ Lofi Vibes – Gentle State
While YITTY will celebrate its one year anniversary on April 12 rumors continue to swirl online regarding this controversy. As news of this spreads online and spills over to various news and press outlets, all eyes will most certainly be on YITTY to see how they will address these allegations.
Multiple attempts to reach out to YITTY for comment on these allegations were left unanswered at the time of this posting.
Featured image credit YITTY
