Hats off: Lancaster company pulls hat design after community rallies around Philly designer who made it first

A Philly-based designer said a Lancaster agency and boutique copied one of his most popular designs. The drama spilled over onto Instagram with dozens of artists weighing in. Now, the Lancaster shop is apologizing — and pulling its version.

Ray Schwab, the maker behind local lifestyle brand RCS4, is known for his small rotating batches of T-shirts, koozies, patches, and hats with nods to motorcycles, Pennsylvania, and retro flair.

Around 2017, he launched the first iteration of his Pennsylvania hats — a classic six-panel cap with a large felt “P” and “A” stitched on the front. The hats retail for $38 and Schwab rereleases them in different fabrics and colorways.

So when Ellicott & Co. — a boutique out of Lancaster that’s owned and run by the brand agency Infantree — launched a similar line of PA hats this year, in similar colors and adorned with a felt “PA,” Schwab took to Instagram to express his frustrations.

One of the pitfalls of being a small designer is a lack of protection when it comes to original designs. Without a lawyer on call or major cash flow on hand, one of the only opportunities a creator has to make change if they think they have been copied is through social media. And that’s exactly what Schwab did.

“This is a slimeball move,” he wrote on Instagram over the weekend. “I’ve made and sold the PA felt letter hat since 2017.” Schwab also claimed that the Lancaster agency was not only aware of his hats but had previously discussed potentially selling them at Ellicott & Co. — a point the agency later disputed to Schwab and The Inquirer.

Since Schwab went public, a slew of local designers and customers came to Schwab’s defense, pointing out that the hats were nearly identical and that copying a fellow small business is highly frowned upon.

Ellicott & Co.’s now-removed Instagram post with a photo of its $28 hats was flooded with comments.

“Wow! You ripped these off hard,” wrote local graphic artist Eric Hinkley. “You’re selling @rcs4 stuff?” quipped Philly multimedia artist Liv Potter. “I thought these were @rcs4 hats. Same colors, same design … weird,” wrote illustrator Sean Rynkewicz. Other posts from the brand, unrelated to the hats, have also been bogged down by comments chastising them for “stealing art.”

Following a request for comment from The Inquirer, leaders at Ellicott & Co. reached out to Schwab to apologize and pulled the hat from its website and social media.

“I was away this weekend and came back to quite the list of social media notifications,” Ryan Martin, Infantree’s account director, said in an email to Schwab shared with The Inquirer. “It was never our goal to copy your hat design. As designers ourselves, we understand the frustration when you see something that looks way too close to something you have already created.”

In response to Schwab’s claims that Ellicott & Co. had previously discussed selling his hats, Martin said they saw that the two brands’ social accounts had chatted back in 2017. But, Martin said, Schwab was speaking with a “previous store manager” and that he and his business partner were “unaware of any of this communication, and truthfully unaware of your PA hat until this weekend.”

“Now seeing your design, we recognize how similar it is,” he said. “We apologize for this situation and will immediately stop selling the hat.”

From a legal standpoint, experts say enforcing something like the PA hat design would be tricky. American fashion laws don’t comprehensively protect clothing brands from being copied. Copyright laws protect an expression, not a specific design or idea. And Schwab isn’t suggesting Ellicott & Co. took his sewing patterns and duplicated the hat. Additionally, Martin said in his email to Schwab that the brand used a publicly available font to make the “PA” and manufactured the hats locally.

And while this type of incident involving two hyper-local designers is rare, the concept of a big retailer accused of copying a small designer’s work isn’t new. Artists have repeatedly accused Philly-headquartered Urban Outfitters of copying designs without consent or credit. A few years back, Philly brothers Steven and Billy Dufala claimed Adidas ripped off a viral Nike sneaker sculpture they created. More recently, a Philly-based designer who made Beyoncé's iconic disco ball hat lamented about drop-shippers selling knockoffs at discounted rates.

» READ MORE: This Philly creator made Beyoncé's viral disco hat — then came the knockoffs. Etsy’s become a hotbed for them.

Ellicott & Co. hasn’t responded publicly to the criticisms, nor has the brand posted new content on social media since the backlash began.

Martin declined to comment on how many hats Ellicott & Co. had sold, if any of the profits would be shared with Schwab, and what would happen to the deadstock hats.

Still, Schwab says he’s happy to move forward.

“I just wanted them to acknowledge what they did and to stop selling them,” he said. “They did both so I have no issues with them moving forward.”

And as far as the hats go, he says a new batch is coming soon.