A young entrepreneur is considering legal action after PrettyLittleThing ‘ripped off’ his designs and sold t-shirts at a fraction of the price.

Sean Hagan says it was ‘demeaning’ to discover the online clothing giant had allegedly based their designs on branding and colour schemes he and his business partner had worked on for two years.

He called the BooHoo owned website ‘the epitome of everything we don’t want to be associated with’ and is currently speaking to lawyers about his options.

PrettyLittleThing have since removed the t-shirts, but Mr Hagan is now calling on people to stop using the retailer, which he says is damaging independent businesses in the industry.

He told Metro.co.uk: ‘They think they can just take it down. They’ve probably sold more t-shirts than we had in the time they were up.

‘Someone brought it to our attention last Tuesday. We don’t know how long they were up for. The only reason that they took them down is because my partner made a [social media] story and tagged the head of design.

‘Obviously it’s a complete rip off. If you were using it as inspiration you could at least change the colouring. They kept our branding and just changed the last word. We are talking to a lawyer now to work out a few things.’

The PrettyLittleThing t-shirts were selling at £10 each, which wouldn’t even cover the cost of each of Donotsubverge’s items at a factory in Greenwich, east London.

Mr Hagan added: ‘Because we take the graphic designs and prints so seriously there are so many things that can go wrong when working long distance.’

He says he is sure his garments were made of better quality material, selling at £45 a pop. But to the naked eye it would be hard for someone to tell the difference when shopping online.

Mr Hagan added: ‘We haven’t had a single sale since they uploaded even though we’ve blown up on social media a bit. It’s just demeaning that they took something we’ve worked for two years on.

‘They’re the epitome of everything we don’t want to be associated with. They do fast fashion, they don’t give a s**t about creativity or imagination.

‘There’s not one good thing about it – there’s no respect for the fashion industry, it’s bad for the environment, people just wear it once and chuck it away. We don’t want anything to do with it and now we do sadly.’

Mr Hagan, 23, from Deptford, east London, started working on the business in 2018 with his business partner Harvey Diack, from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

After launching their first collection in February this year, their t-shirts have been modelled by Instagram influencers and a number of footballers including Dele Alli, Jack Grealish and James Maddison.

They’ve made enough money to work on their next collection but are cautious about their work being mimicked in the future.

Calling PrettyLittleThing out in an Instagram post, the designers said: ‘Unlike fast fashion brand @prettylittlething, we have spent the last two years pouring our hearts into a brand that represents everything we believe in.

‘A passion for creativity, originality, and the pursuit of non-conformity. This came to life with the launch of our first collection ‘DNS001: DO NOT WEAR’.

‘Fast forward six months, and we find out it has become a cog in the fast fashion wheel. We are genuinely upset to be associated with a company that has such little respect for the creativity of independent designers.

‘The cheap, mass-produced replica retailed at £10, which is a fraction of our production costs alone. Not only does this massively undercut our product, but it links us to a brand that stands for everything we oppose.

A spokeswoman for PrettyLittleThing told Metro.co.uk: ‘The items in question were removed from the website as soon as we were notified and we will be working to ensure this issue does not reoccur.’

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