A powerful feminist poster series about judging women by their clothing has gone viral -- but it looks strikingly similar to a project from 2013.
The series, produced by student Theresa Wlokka of Miami Ad School in Germany for nonprofit Terre des Femmes, was picked up by news outlets from Bustle to Design Taxi this week.
The set of three posters shows the words used to judge women as they relate to the length of her skirt, the depth of her neckline and the height of her heels. The concept behind the series is that women are judged no matter what they're wearing, regardless of whether an outfit is considered "prudish" or "revealing." The images highlight the type of everyday misogyny that holds gender equality back.
The series makes an important point about the way people make damaging assumptions about women based only on their physical appearances -- specifically, their clothing choices. However, commenters and Twitter users have pointed out that these posters bear a clear resemblance to college student Pomona Lake's 2013 piece, "Judgments." (See a side-by-side of the two projects below.)
Lake, who formerly went by the name Rosea, told The Huffington Post that she reached out to Miami Ad School after friends shared the new series with her, informing them that the idea had been plagiarized. Lake says the school never responded, but Wlokka reached out to her personally.
According to Lake, Wlokka told her that she had never seen Lake's work before, claimed that this poster series was her original idea and apologized for the inconvenience.
"Sometimes you can absorb ideas without realizing where it's from, but in this instance, word for word the projects are the same," Lake told HuffPost. "If they had emailed me and reached out for permission and credited me with the idea, I would have said yes."
A Twitter account appearing to belong to Frida Regeheim, who is credited as the ads' copywriter, was deleted Friday. A tweet sent earlier in the day from the account claimed that the posters' creators had been in touch with Lake and received permission to use her idea -- something that Lake claims is untrue.
Regeheim, Wlokka and Terre des Femmes have not responded to HuffPost's request for comment.
