Claire’s botches social media response to plagiarism charges

The fashion jewelry retailer waited two days to respond to a blog post charging it with using an independent U.K. company’s designs.

The blog post came Wednesday. Tatty Devine, a handmade jewelry company in England, posted photos of its own designs next to designs sold at international affordable jewelry retailer Claire’s. The response was explosive. More than 200 people commented before Tatty Devine closed the comments, and more than 2,000 tweets linking the post went out.

It wasn’t until Friday that Claire’s said anything about the matter, when the company posted this to its Facebook page: “Claire’s Stores, Inc. is a responsible company that employs designers, product developers and buyers, and works with many suppliers to provide innovative collections that bring customers all the latest fashion trends. As such, we take any allegations of wrong doing seriously. We are looking into the matters raised.” A shortened version went up on Twitter as well.