“Field & Crew” Heritage Watch & Bands Kickstarter Project – $199 & up
Above photo credit: CarbonNYC
Is anything truly original anymore? That’s hard to tell. But you know what they say about monkeys and typewriters. Given enough time, just about anything will get recycled or paid tribute to. But sometimes it’s a little too close. Your job is to compare and decide whether it’s an acceptable tribute you might wear, or something to steer clear of. To submit a suggestion for The Rip Off, send it in via style tip.
UPDATE: Since yesterday, the photoshopped form•function•form photos have been removed from the Field & Crew watch kickstarter page. As of early Thursday morning they’re still on the instagram page though.
UPDATE II: Pics have been removed from the instagram page.
Left: The “Field & Crew” watch kickstarter project. Right: The original form•function•form Button Stud Weekender
Well that’s just blatant. This kickstarter project is out to make not just a watch, but a watch equipped with “smart pin” spring bars that should allow you to swap any of their six watch bands (also offered as a “reward” for $49) without the use of a spring bar tool. One of the band options is this “brown leather stud” band. Pretty sure we’ve all seen these before. FFF’s button stud watch band is a great idea, so imitators will come along, but to use the exact same photos from form•function•form‘s website with a few cosmetic photoshop changes?
Look, it’s so, so easy to tear down something that’s creative. And coincidences most certainly do happen. And the spring bar idea, well it’s an idea (spring bar tool works just fine here). And this guy might really be out to create something. But you just can’t do this. Even if it’s on Instagram:
Left: from the Field & Crew instagram page. Right: The FFF in Veg Tan – Essex
Oh, and…
Left: The Field and Crew watch on the “shark” band. Right: The J. Crew Timex Andros
Funny, in all three examples, I like the Timex more.
Couldn’t they at least copy/homage a better watch?
LOL.. The “Shark Band” picture is quite a bad photoshop job..
How dare someone try to make money. These designs are not patented, so more power to F&C for trying to improve on designs that are already how there. I am all for another start up that is trying to offer people something that many want.
This is the Jonathan Coulton vs. Glee, Baby Got Back of watches.
Why does everything always have to turn into an argument when people post an opinion here? I wasn’t even commenting on these watches. I have no opinion on them. I was just praising Joe for taking a different approach for a change.
I believe the whole point is to illustrate you can try to make money, but without resorting to copying and pasting photos from someone’s website. Hence the difference between a genuine start up and basic Photoshop knowledge.
Same here.
If you want to copy an unpatented design, while tasteless, that’s fine. The issue is that he just stole the pictures directly from Shawn’s site and passes them off as his own. He’s raising money using these pictures, when the truth is he can’t actually deliver what is pictured because it’s not his.
You’re picture just popped up…You’re that Shawn. I noticed he changed the Kickstarter page also.
We’re all for people making money with an unoriginal design as long as they don’t lie about it. Any product with a market is going to see competitors, with the exception of the Express 1MX in Extra Slim Fit and Extra Small. That’s the only damned player in the game, I wish they’d get some competition.
It’s a pretty big assumption to say the designs aren’t patented. How do you know they aren’t? Have you looked them up?
The images are the copyright property of their owners regardless of any patents. There is a serious issue of copyright infringement here if this Kickstarter is using other people’s copyrighted images to sell its own products.
I think it would be fine for a company to actually make an improved version of a pre-existing design. But this Kickstarter has done nothing of the sort. They have copied two designs, stolen images without the consent of the images’ owners, and are now attempting to pass off one lame modification as an improvement. (Though this modification is also a copy – straps with these “easy change” springbars already exist and are sold at Wal-Mart, among other places.)
Shawn – You should report this Kickstarter person to Instagram and Kickstarter and ask them to remove the images in question.
I’m pretty grossed out by this Kickstarter project. So many things about it smell fishy – the stolen images, the stolen designs, the lameness of the supposed selling feature. Even the background story is lame and unbelievable. You didn’t like having to pay a watchmaker to change straps for you, so instead of spending 5 minutes to bother learning how to change them yourself, your first instinct is to start a new business? Oook. Pretty sure we can all guess at the real story here.
The owner claims to have a functional prototype, but all the photos are clearly just photoshopped images of the Timex Andros on top of photoshopped images of other straps. If you have a prototype, why not use photos of it? If you don’t have a prototype, why not use original mock-ups?
It will be interesting to see if this guy’s use of stolen images will get shut down by Instagram, Kickstarter, J.Crew, etc.
At the bottom of the page, there’s an option to ‘Report this project to Kickstarter’. If everyone here clicks that, selects ‘This is not a project’ and pastes a link to this blog post in the details field, Kickstarter will have to take a look, and will most likely shut the project down.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/332/411/e85fd19658098875ab161244d122af1a_large.png
Talk about a photoshop disaster – I can’t tell whether I’m looking at a convex or a concave surface. I’ve never seen a kickstarter for an optical illusion
One of the most blatant issues (to me) is the fact that the markings on the inside of FFF’s are not just there for looks. They indicate that the leather is horween shell cordovan – some of the strongest and most sought hides in the world, not to mention expensive. This is a ridiculous copy with no attention to details.
To those arguing whether the design has a patent or not – believe me when I tell you that the design has been around for years, likely since the creation of the wristwatch.
The first wrist-watches literally had wire loops welded to the ends of a pocketwatch – there were no springbars. Trench watches in WW2 were created with this style. Straps worked much like belts, and were called “pass-through” style, because they passed through both loops and buckled together.
The design is still used widely today, most commonly as the “Nato” and “Zulu” style nylon straps. This might not be a patented design, but it has been in use for decades, and the KS project is a blatant ripoff of the FFF strap design.
Sorry, my first comment was a bit premature. To copy a product is a timeless tradition. The homage watch market is proof of that. With that being said it is not cool to just go and steal pictures of other people’s work (FFF).
I posted a comment on their Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/fieldandcrew ). Perhaps others should do the same?
But Joe doesnt typically point out the sketchy deals. That was my point, Sir.
People come to Dappered to read about great deals on things that are well made and well designed. (And occasionally he makes fun of awful stuff…because that’s just fun.) Those items are special, because the vast majority of items don’t meet those three criteria. Why would you read a blog about stuff you shouldn’t buy? 99.9% of things fit into that category.
It’s not Joe’s job to “acknowledge that there are rip offs out there”, as if he’s some apologist for the capitalist regime. Everyone should be well aware that there are ripoffs and bad deals everywhere. Since you brought up capitalism, that’s the beauty of it, when it’s working well. You get a lot of choices, and you have the freedom to decide which ones are good choices for you. (It would be great if they were all good choices, but the reality is, people don’t always do good things.)
But, I have a feeling that this discussion is outside the scope of Dappered.
Right? The poor ‘shopping is almost as egregious as the theft of photos.
Update: Now it appears he’s deleted my comment and removed the ability to comment on the Facebook page. Can anyone confirm this? I’ll be tweeting at him, anyways. (@fieldandcrew).
Oh snap:
“Funding for this project was suspended less than a minute ago.”
This seems appropriate. I don’t have any problem with him coming up with a new product – really, the quick-change watch band is a nice idea. But he needs to sell that on its own merits, not just rip off other products that already exist.
He didn’t come up with that idea either. It’s called a pegged spring bar and it’s been around for years. The whole thing is a lie.
Hm. Nevermind, then. Yeah, he’s a jerk.
Don’t blame capitalism for copycats and people with with little integrity when thinking up an item to sell.