SM Entertainment Raises Suspicions Of Plagiarism With aespa’s “Savage” Teaser Photos
aespa is exciting fans as they begin to tease their upcoming comeback. The girls will make their highly awaited return on October 5, 2021 with their first mini album titled Savage. As they slowly tease their fans with new concept photos, however, the girls and their agency are making headlines for alleged plagiarism — once again.
The SM Entertainment monster girl group recently shared some stunning individual photos of Ningning,
Karina,
Winter,
and Giselle.
As the excitement began to form regarding the girls’ comeback, however, some of aespa’s teaser photos have become the center of criticism for their similarity to other artists’ works.
The above photos of the aespa members wearing headpieces have been accused of plagiarizing British designer James Merry. James Merry is the co-creative designer for Icelandic musician Björk and has been credited as the mastermind behind some of her amazing headpieces.
Here are James Merry’s headpieces and aespa’s comeback photos side-by-side.
But this is not the only “Savage” teaser photo that is being called out for its alleged plagiarism. In the photo below, Karina can be seen lying mid-air with a skeletal serpent-like being wrapped around her body. And while this was explained as an homage to the snake in aespa’s debut song “Black Mamba,” netizens couldn’t help but notice the similarity between this photo…
…and this photo. The photo in question is the work of Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama. The illustrator’s artwork features a woman in the same mid-air position with a robot-looking being wrapped around her body.
This is not the first time aespa and SM Entertainment has been hit with plagiarism accusations. The girl group’s debut song “Black Mamba” was also called out for its alleged plagiarism after netizens noticed many similarities between aespa’s music video and German visual artist Timo Helgert‘s work…
…and one of their “Black Mamba” Inkigayo stages was also accused of copying the work of artist Blake Kathryn.
was sent this, def see an uncomfortable level of similarities w my work namely this pic.twitter.com/3hWxUviiWo
— blakeᴮᴷ (@blakekathryn) November 26, 2020
And while SM Entertainment addressed each plagiarism accusation at the time of its occurrence, they have yet to address the allegations surrounding aespa’s recent “Savage” teaser photos. Stay tuned for updates.
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