Photo via wardrobeoxygen.com
So apparently the retailer Marshalls thought it’d be a great idea to create an art car in the shape of a stiletto to drum up attention for some shoe-shopping website they’re launching. Painted red, of course, to drum up attention. How this slipped under our radar, we don’t know: It appears Marshalls started the art car publicity campaign in September of last year and took it across the country over the last year-plus; it was spotted in D.C. and Boston in October.
Yeah, great idea, except David Crow already built a red stiletto art car years ago and it has since become one of the most recognizeable and (in)famous art cars on the scene today. Thanks to Harrod Blank‘s profile of it in his book on art cars, the story of the Red Stiletto’s inception is widely known: To make up for teasing his girlfriend about her shoe collection, he began work on the Red Stiletto as a gift for her, but they broke up before he finished it. It’s been to dozens of art car parades; it’s made many public appearances; it’s now in an art car collection. So did Marshalls expect nobody would notice? And they didn’t even do a quality knockoff.
We’ve got an email in to David now to see whether Marshalls at least contacted David before ripping off his idea. (via)