It Looks Like Marc Jacobs ‘Borrowed’ St-Viateur Bagel’s Logo

Famed bagel-makers St-Viateur Bagel has long sold t-shirts bearing the store’s logo, but now it seems that others are trying to muscle in on that territory: Fashion label Marc Jacobs just released a hoodie that seems to have an unexpected Montreal connection.

The $195 (USD) hoodie is part of a collaboration between the brand and artist Ava Nirui — other designs in the collection riff on corporate logos or slogans like “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”.

One of the hoodies spells out “Marc Jacobs”, with the “o” replaced by an anthropomorphic bagel. As Instagram account/photographer of street trash FuckNoMTL was quick to point out, the character on the hoodie has more than a passing resemblance to St-Viateur’s humanoid bagel mascot. Multiple commenters tagged Diet Prada, an Instagram account that posts counterfeit and knock-off clothing designs.

The two images aren’t identical, but there’s some major overlap. The mouths are a near-identical triangular shape (resembling the island of Montreal, no less), as are the oval eyes. The bagels are the same slightly uneven circular shape, dotted with seeds, and the arms, while different colours, are similar in proportion. The Marc Jacobs bagel has the added embellishments of a hat and staff, while the St-Viateur original has legs and sneakers.

Some publications made the connection to the bagel store, for example, Hypebeast called it a “reference”. Meanwhile, arts and culture publication Nylon dubbed the collection “a playful commentary on bootleg merch” — but if the pictures are lined up next to each other, it seems less like “playful commentary” and more “ornamented copy-paste job”.

Of course, it’s possible that St-Viateur Bagel signed off on the image, in which case: all good! (Eater has reached out to St-Viateur Bagel, Marc Jacobs, and Ava Nirui to ask.) But if not, it seems a little gauche to say that you’re just giving some commentary on bootleg and counterfeit fashion by lifting somebody else’s logo.

This isn’t the first time St-Viateur’s logo has appeared in an odd place — just a couple of months ago, Myer’s Bagels in Burlington, Vermont was spotted with an identical copy of the bagel-man. In that case, it turned out that Myer’s had been granted permission to use the logo a long time ago, but St-Viateur kindly requested that they please not do that anymore, thank you.

• A Vermont Bakery Mysteriously Has the Same Logo as St-Viateur Bagel [EMTL]
• Schmeared? Myer’s International Bagel Mascot Mystery Solved [Seven Days]
• Ava Nirui x Marc Jacobs Second Collaboration Taps Julian Consuegra, Avi Gold & IDEA [Hypebeast]
• Embrace Your Inner New Yorker With This New Marc Jacobs Collab [Nylon]