Afi Ruel In the first blog post of this series, I talked about the gist of the story behind what made Cruella de Vil who she is. I won’t repeat everything I already said there, but if you want to indulge and see lesson 1, check it out here.
This leads me to the second and possibly most important lesson from this story:
Lesson 2: NEVER let ANYONE pimp your gift. In watching the movie, I couldn’t help but notice how the baroness was never seen actually designing any of “her” designs. I thought at some point we would see this, but alas…no baroness actually drumming up designs. And that’s because…she didn’t. Instead, she hired designers who created designs. Then she stole and presented them in prestigious showings as her own. She pimped every last one of her designers, including Estella until she embraced Cruella.
Let me first say that I understand that when you have no experience, credibility or visibility as a seamstress, sewist or designer that you would want to work with an established designer who is established in your industry. And usually that means little to no pay, long hours and a lot of toil; but usually there is something you receive at the end showing for your work (such as a letter of recommendation, placement within the organization…you get the idea). But that is totally different from having said established designer take your work and present it as their own. If anything that designer should be using your efforts to create their own actual designs. Allowing someone to take your original designs with no credit to you or payment is a no-go. It’s basically pimping and that is not acceptable.
It’s very reminiscent of how the American music industry used the sound, style and talent of African-American artists as a backdrop or launching pad for white artists (See the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom). The white artists achieved stardom and received compensation. The African-American artists remained obscure and sometimes not paid at all for their work. There are a lot of reasons a talented person would allow themselves to be pimped like this. But I believe at the root of it all is they believe that they can’t get or they don’t deserve any better.
Have you ever allowed your work to be passed off as someone else’s? Did it ever happen to you unknowingly? If so, what did you do about it?
