Apology over T-shirt error

A T-SHIRT promoting the St Paul’s Carnival has been withdrawn from sale after claims it was based on a street artist’s work.

Organisers of the carnival have apologised for initially endorsing the shirt produced by a local designer.

The shirt produced by Bristol designer Alright Mate, featured a woman in a feather head dress, surrounded by loudspeakers and the words St Paul’s Carnival 2023. The company had offered to donate some of the profits to the carnival funds. But soon after it was promoted by carnival organisers on social media, Bristol graffiti artist Inkie posted on his Instagram that it had copied many aspects of a mural he created for the carnival’s 50th anniversary in 2018.

The Alright Mate design had some differences – it included images of guns with flowers in them, and broken knives, raising concerns that this was not in line with the carnival’s attempts to promote a peaceful image.

Carnival organisers apologised for “the artistic error of judgement” in endorsing the shirt. They said: “We sincerely apologise to everyone involved and to the wider community for the offence this has caused. We have investigated the process taken in reviewing the design and the original endorsement was agreed by a former member of staff who is no longer part of the organisation. While we have robust processes in place for reviewing all collaborations, it is clear that on this occasion we fell far short. We will be reviewing our internal approval processes to make sure we do not make the same mistake in future.”

At the time of going to print, the Voice was unable to contact Inkie or Alright Mate for comment.