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This morning, we showed you how, in addition to co-opting Warby Parker's business idea, Bluefly's just-launched-yesterday ecommerce site Eyefly also totally stole Warby Parker's product shots. It seemed pretty outrageous—not just the big company ripping of the little guy, but to add insult to injury, Bluefly was doing something mean to a do-good organization (for every pair of glasses they sell, Warby Parker donates one pair of glasses to someone in need).
After a lot of back-and-forth over how this could possibly have happened (we'll spare you the details—it included a French intervention), a Bluefly Eyefly spokesperson sent us this statement:
Thank You Racked for bringing this to our attention. The site design team (outside vendor) initially used the image as a place holder until we created our own content, which we did with Tommy Ton. We are extremely pleased with the campaign created by Tommy which features Paper Mag's Editorial Director Mickey Boardman, Fashion Blogger Susie Bubble, Senior Accessories Editor David Thielebeule, Stylist Dani Stahl, Online Fashion Editor Zandile Blay. We have no desire to use Warby Parker's vision as we prefer ours. We are sorry for any confusion this may have caused.Eyefly has since removed the Warby Parker image from their site.
· Warby Parker [Official Site]
· Eyefly [Official Site]
· Bluefly's Eyefly rips off idea, steals Warby Parker's product photos [Racked]