An article in one of last week’s editions of Women’s Wear Daily reported on the fourth-quarter success of hipster shopping spot, Urban Outfitters, which posted a 31.5 percent increase in sales for the period.

Richard A. Hayne, president of Urban Outfitters told WWD that:

“We are confident we can navigate thorough this fashion turbulence. Our ability to produce strong financial results does not rest with any one fashion lover. It flows from our ability to build title brands that connect emotionally with our customers.”

The article also quoted Christine Chen, an analyst for Pacific Growth Equities, who feels that fashion trends among Urban Outfitters shoppers has shifted to “more minimalist and streamlined rather than embellished and distressed.”

What I’m wondering is if copping graphic designs from legitimate artists has anything to do with their fiscal success. I mean, way pay the artist if you can just mass-produce it for the mall-rat scene yourself right?

One such case of this involves a graphic design brand, Crown Farmer. Last year, two of their tee shirts were removed from Urban Outfitters stores because their obvious drug reference was pissing a few people off. Then, instead of being returned to their designer, the shirts were cut up, modified, and resold.

Transworld Business reported:

“The legal parameters that define logo infringement are not always clear and can sometimes result in hairy situations when conflicts drift into the gray area of the law. This was certainly the case in early June when clothing brand Crown Farmer announced that retail chain Urban Outfitters was allegedly cutting up Crown Farmer T-shirts, sewing the ripped shirt graphics on jackets, and reselling them.”

In fact, there’s a whole website called Urban Counterfeiters devoted to outing of the hipster emporium’s indiscretions. Another Urban Outfitters product in question is a tee shirt with the silk screen of a warplane dropping cupcakes instead of bombs (cheeky right? I love it). It’s a blatant knock off of a Johnny Cupcakes design. Though its on sale now, his tee shirts normally sell for over thirty dollars. That’s about ten bucks more then the one you could pick up at Urban Outfitters, but as his website states, “This one is famous. Let's just say it is a lot cooler to own this one, the original.”

On the clear plagiarism, Urban Coutnerfeiters wrote:

“This one's particularly nasty on the part of Urban Outfitters. A while after sending in samples of his t-shirts so that the mega chain might consider buying some off of him to sell in their stores, Johnny Cupcakes was notified by a friend that they were carrying them... without his knowledge. Turns out Urban took a concept off of one of his samples and made their own version.”

Adrants, of course, also noticed: “It appears Urban Outfitters has borrowed heavily from a Johnny Cupcake bomb-dropping design. One time is, perhaps, a coincidence. Two times and it's time for Urban Outfitters to come clean.”

I for one, was nearly swayed by the version at Urban Outfitters, and am thanking the teeshirt-fashion deities above for guiding me to the original instead. Knock-offs suck, but screwing over working artists sucks even more.