It turns out Miley Cyrus’ outfit choices at the 2015 VMAs were b-b-b-bad for more than the nudity levels, with Aussie label DI$COUNT UNIVER$E suggesting the star ripped off its designs.
The Melbourne-based label took to Instagram yesterday to share that it is “heartbroken” and “distraught”, assumed to be in reference to Miley’s closing performance of “Dooo it” with 31 drag queens.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the similarities between DI$COUNT UNIVER$E’s pieces and the costumes on-stage for Miley’s performance. Evil eye motifs? Tick. Sparkles? Tick. Love hearts? Tick. Radical and outlandish design proven to be DI$COUNT UNIVER$E’s signature? TICK.
The label comes under the VFiles platform, and the group’s founder, Julie Ann Quay, has spoken on co-designer Nadia Napreychikov and Cami James’ behalf. “Taking another person’s work, recreating it and saying it is yours is not right,” read the Twitter statement.
A statement from VFILES founder @JulieAnneQuay regarding the VMAs: pic.twitter.com/kvFDxIkxbd
— VFILES (@VFILES) August 31, 2015
Is Miley to blame, though? It turns out the costumes were created by Brad Callahan’s label, BCalla. Brad told Nylon that Miley “just wanted something fun, something outrageous.” He continued, “They started me sketching by sending me inspiration images, I reacted to the images and from my sketches a direction was born.”
No, the inspiration images weren’t DI$COUNT UNIVER$E’s latest look book, believe it or not. Miley’s stylist Simone Harouche sent over images which Brad claims “were really easy to be inspired by”, saying he was was led most by two pics in particular.
“The first being a vintage picture of two little kids at a carnival wearing giant paper mâché heads as backpacks, and the second being that iconic image of Bowie in custom Kansai Yamamoto.”
The thing is, Miley is such a huge advocate of the DI$COUNT UNIVER$E brand. It was pretty much all she wore while on her Melbourne “Bangerz” tour late last year.
Plus, Miley’s stylist, Simone, is also well aware of the Melbourne label’s aesthetic, having bought the now-famous shirt which Miley wore for her 2013 shoot with Terry Richardson.
Photo: DI$COUNT UNIVER$E
However, Simone thinks DI$COUNT UNIVER$E are capitalising on the attention surrounding Miley and the VMAs.
“It’s very sad that people need to use Miley’s amazing performance as an opportunity to create press for themselves, when they had nothing to do with the creative process,” she told Yahoo Style. “It’s unfortunate that they’re taking away from this young designer’s opportunity to make something special for Miley.”
To make things more confusing for you, elderly internet star Baddie Winkle wore legit DI$COUNT UNIVER$E to the VMAs, and even posed backstage with Miley while wearing the threads.
What we do know is, the internet got very confused during and after the VMAs, thinking Miley was for sure wearing the Aussie label. All you need to do is spend just five minutes on DI$COUNT UNIVER$E or Miley’s socials to figure that one out.
TheFashionSpot has reached out to DI$COUNT UNIVER$E for comment.
