With scores of fashion brands mushrooming in the market, designers often feel the need to present something unique and out-of-the-box to increase their sales. However, in the desperation to make heads turn, people often come up with bizarre things that make us question their existence. Remember the ₹23,000 ‘Denim Panties’? Or those see-through trousers?
Well, this time, a fashion student tried to sell discarded train seat covers as crop tops.
As bizarre as it sounds, the student identified as Mhari Thurston-Tyler made crop tops out of used seat covers of Chiltern Railways, a British train operating company, that she found lying on a station, reported BBC.
The 20-year-old kept one of the two seat-covers for herself and sold the other one as a bandeau on Depop, a shopping application for buying and selling second-hand clothes, for about Rs 1500. But on realizing she couldn’t make money by selling the railways’ property, she refunded the customer and took the advert down, reports The Sun.
Mhari’s advert went viral on social media and was recently shared by Depop Drama. In the ad, she can be seen modeling the seat cover and selling it as a “social distancing children railway crop.”
When the shopping app slammed her for selling ‘stolen’ goods and said that it violated their terms of service, Mhari said that she hasn’t stolen them and that she found the two-seat covers “balled up on the floor” outside Marylebone station in London in September.
“I didn’t steal it but I understand it’s not right to re-sell it. I have no money at the moment so decided to put the second one on Depop to see if anyone would buy it. I have to resort to little things like this to make ends meet, to pay the bills,” she said.
“We explicitly prohibit the sale of illegal and unlawful content on the app, including any stolen goods. This item clearly violates our terms of service, but as it has been removed by the seller and is no longer for sale on the platform, we will not be taking immediate steps to ban this user,” said a Depop spokesperson.
Chiltern Railways took notice of the incident after they were tagged by a Twitter user.
Hi there, thanks for letting us know about this, we've raised to the relevant team.
— Chiltern Railways (@chilternrailway) January 7, 2021
After the fallout, Mhari now wishes to sell crop tops under the name of ‘Children Railways.’ She even posted a picture with the same.
IM CRYIFNKFFG SHE JUST POSTED THIS 💀💀💀 pic.twitter.com/y3t3jmcoUv
— BLOND JUNGKOOK ♡⁷ GRAMMY NOMINATED BTS (@cinpai) January 8, 2021
This is how people reacted to her post:
Depop is like an alternate universe in itself I swear
— Christina Von Boleyn (@svkubus) January 7, 2021
Imagine stealing an item that was in public that many people have certainly touched and then using that item as a piece of clothing.
— Mystk (@EnigMajicc) January 8, 2021
kinda cute af where’s the link
— 721 • 🤍🦋⚔️ (@ayanatheoracle) January 7, 2021
Imagine working on that train and seeing someone st3al one to wear as a top,,, i would’ve screAMED pic.twitter.com/lzK8kZ8pDv
— A (@amlstw) January 7, 2021
Mhari was sure able to make a hype that might help her popularise her crop top line. But, the fact stays that Fashion ke naam pe log kuch bhi sell and buy kar letey hai, haina?