By Abby Glassenberg
May 1, 2018: DMC has edited the Instagram posts about the contest to now include a $500 prize. In an email to Craft Industry Alliance, Alex Holbrook, the director of public relations, stated that the company is reviewing how artists are linked on the company website and, although it has been in the pipeline for a while, correcting this issue will now become a priority.
DMC, the embroidery floss company, is running a contest asking artists to submit designs that will be part of their 1,000 Patterns Project, a library of free patterns on the DMC website. Each pattern is kitted with DMC floss. The winning artists receive no monetary compensation and give up the right to republish their pattern elsewhere.
There are currently 554 patterns available on the DMC 1,000 Patterns Project website. Many were designed by an in-house designer, some were designed by artists the company formerly contracted with and paid, and a few were designed by past contest winners who were unpaid.
This week DMC launched a new contest for spring to grow the 1,000 Patterns Project. Artists are invited to submit a design related to the theme of “spring florals.”
“The aim of the competition is to champion the community and give some exposure to those artists who may not already have a large following, allowing them to connect with other crafters,” Hannah Manton, DMC’s social media manager, wrote on the DMC Instagram feed. “The patterns are given for free to the community, as are all our patterns, so we don’t make any money from the competition.” Winning artists get their design posted to the DMC Instagram feed with their profile tagged.
Each pattern that is part of the project has a page on the DMC website and, although the artist’s name appears, it isn’t hyperlinked nor do they get a full profile making it difficult for consumers to learn more about them. Below the pattern is an ecommerce listing for the kit of embroidery floss used to stitch it up. For example, The Wildflowers Girl pattern was selected as a winner during the last 1,000 Patterns Project contest.The winning artist’s name is not mentioned. The kit, shown below, contains seven skeins of floss for and sells for $4.38.
Each Sunday a selection of free patterns, along with their kit listings, are emailed to the DMC subscriber list that, according to Manton, contains 100,000 email addresses.
In a phone conversation last week Manton said the company is phasing out its paid designer collaborations. All patterns going forward will either be designed in-house or will be generated as part of an unpaid contest. Once a design is chosen by DMC, the company has exclusive rights to it, meaning the designer is no longer permitted to sell that design themselves as either a pattern or a kit.
DMC was founded in 1746 in France. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and was subsequently reorganized and then bought, in August 2016, by BlueGem Capital Partners, a London-based private equity firm with an all-male seven-member investment team. BlueGem also owns yarn brands Wool and the Gang and Sirdar, as well as Liberty of London which it bought in 2010 for £32 million. All together DMC Group may be the world’s largest needlecraft company generating £85 million in sales. DMC claims to hold 60% of the world embroidery thread market.
Although on the DMC Instagram feed she wrote otherwise, on the phone Manton conceded that one of the aims of the 1,000 Patterns Project was to generate revenue for the company. “We are a floss company so the primary goal, I guess, is to sell floss, but I do think that there are positive side effects,” she said. “I mean the whole point of the project is for people to have accessible access to free patterns, but yeah obviously we are a floss company so…”
When BlueGem acquired DMC their stated goal was to make the company into the industry standard for “creative leisure activities.” The growth plan included “development of a more contemporary proposition, brand refresh, range extension, increased e-commerce sales and social media engagement.” The 1,000 Patterns Project and the current contest are part of this effort. An industry leader like DMC is in a leadership position and can, and should, show that they value the work of artists and designers by offering fair compensation. It’s time for DMC to restructure their community contests to pay the winners a fair market wage for use of their designs.
Editor’s Note: After this post was published cross stitch and embroidery designers began submitting subversive entries to the DMC contest. See a roundup of their designs here.
Good article Abby and thank you for bringing this to our attention. As an embroidery tutor and designer, I can sadly attest that most ‘leisure’ stitchers don’t give a f*$# about where their pattern comes from or what the broader consequences are of using mainly or exclusively ‘free’ patterns. This is why the DMC contest is so successful and does not produce an outrage among stitchers. Fellow embroidery designers such as Hazel Blomkamp and Yvette Stanton have repeatedly tried to educate people. I myself have engaged in discussions with stitchers on numerous occassions and have come to the conclusion that there is a small, but wonderful!, ethical group of stitchers out there that does think about the consequences of their actions. Sadly, the majority doesn’t and isn’t even afraid to tell it to your face in a rather agressive manner.
You are spot on. We all must do our part to educate crafters and artist that that pattern poaching is wrong. We all have to explain patterns are work; we are not just sharing recipes.
Just a note that recipes are work for those who create them. But copying them and passing them on is an accepted cultural practice. And copying and sharing is also part of the established practice of arts and crafts. That does make establishing businesses in this area harder but I don’t think the solution is to blame the makers. Educating people about respect for property rights is important. Educating creatives about how they can loose out when they produce free content is important. But ultimately creating loyal customers that want you to remain in business because they value what you produce for is the only thing that is that will allow your business to survive.
I’m curious… Perhaps it would be prudent if you publish your designs to have your signature on them, like a watermark? Would that suffice as a copyright?
I note the report states the equity firm is made up of a panel of seven males- meaning at the end of all this is a bunch of dudes making a profit from the unpaid labour of (primarily) female designers.
Not cool, DMC. Not cool at all.
Unfortunately, this is true of most of the craft industry. If you dig deep into companies you will find that at the top, they are dominated by men in ownership and board seats.
Thank you for doing this important reporting.
Looks like i will have to stop using DMC Floss. Sick of hearing about how artists get ‘exposure’ from such things. The only people getting exposure and content for free are the companies.
I was thinking this, too. I’ve been on a hand embroidery kick since I started working on a quilt that incorporates it heavily, so I’m disappointed to have to stop. If you need an alternative, I recently bought some heart-stoppingly gorgeous perle cotton (they make floss too) from House of Embroidery at a show, which makes fair trade hand dyed threads that empower women.
Thank you for the floss tip Sylvia! I was thinking I’d like to phase them out too…I have a huge stash to get through first but it’s great to know there are good fair trade options out there!
DMC was once a great company 🙁
Thanks Abby. There are other options than DMC floss for the embroiderers out there. Granted, its about the cheapest brand, and the one carried by large sewing chains like Jo-Ann’s. If you dig a little bit you will find there are so many great brands of embroidery thread, including silk. Maybe not as cheap, but maybe with better business practices.
Sadly this continuing idea of not paying women for their design skills and labor stems from a long history of seeing textile arts as idle work for women to entertain themselves when their house work is done. As long as people keep jumping at the opportunity to have their work published for little or no pay nothing will ever change.
Wow, very disappointed in the lack of true collaboration for up and coming artists by DMC. DMC Hanna Manton’s explanation, “The aim of the competition is to champion the community and give some exposure to those artists who may not already have a large following, allowing them to connect with other crafters,” rings off tune. If this were so, DMC would provide links to the design’s web page, Etsy store, etc., provide a nice profile of each artist with links, and offer each designer a fair and reasonable percentage of the profits from their sold kits, no?? I think posting to DMC’s Instagram feed about their shortsightedness in truly supporting “those artists” is in order. Shame on them, it makes them sound like they’re only after their own profit margin.
Dmc has given tons of floss to me to design with….but I make my patterns to sell…I just list dmc and their colors to use on my patterns. I love their floss so it’s a win win.
Yes, but they’re not giving floss to everyone who designs a pattern that they release for free. You are also able to retain the rights to your patterns.
yes, I’m smart about it. People have a choice to design for free or not…I chose to make money and have a fun time doing so. I am just saying that DMC has been very generous with me….for all the floss.
You’re providing free advertising for DMC, which you may be fine with. That’s how they view embroidery patterns: advertising for their threads so they can sell them separately from the designer to the retail customer. Also, by inundating the market with free patterns they make it harder for designers like you to justify charging for your work and getting people to buy your designs.
Customers always want to know what colors/numbers….I just list it….it is really for my customers. People buy my designs because of the way I draw….and how I finish the design.
It’s sad that so many people will give their work away for a few seconds of fame and that’s what DMC is counting on. A true artist isn’t in it for the fame. A true artist knows they are worth something, therefore, the fame or acknowledgment will come when they least expect it, making it an even greater gift. Thank you Abby for sharing.
I started using Cosmo floss that French General carries on their web site as well as Sue Spargo’s threads (available on her web site). Sue’s thread (especially the variegated ones) are just gorgeous and lovely to work with! Give them a try.
Abby, thank you so much for posting this. I’ve reposted on social media and shared it with every artist, designer, embroiderer, and sewist I know. Hopefully DMC will wake up and decide to do the right thing. Meanwhile, Aurifil is great source for embroidery floss from a company that does NOT need to exploit artists and designers to sell their products. Bonus: Aurifil cotton floss comes already wound on wooden spools, so we can start stitching right away instead of having to wind the skeins onto little cards ourselves to prevent tangling! http://www.aurifil.com/products/floss
I was designing when the “Pattern Piggies” as they were known were pirating left and right. True followers stayed devoted to the designers knowing it would put us out of business. After a long illness i retired. Was thinking of returning. I see it may not be such a great idea.
Thank you for flagging this up, Abby.
Bad enough a large company have to act like a bunch of cheapskates, but to not even give the designers whose time and energy and goodwill they are (ab)using a link to their blog/website, well that’s too much.
I think people are far too hooked on ‘free’. If you like a design or pattern, be willing to pay.
I can certainly go on line and find a different brand of floss. This is quite the eye opener. Thank you.
This is really a shame Abby! Artisans deserve to be paid especially if the company is going to monetarily benefit from their work. Thank you for always keeping us in the know!
I love embroidery and sometimes use Dmc threads but no more. This practice which I have only just heard about, is quite simply theft. I have recently subscribed to their newsletter and downloaded a few free patterns but as soon as I finish this, I intend to delete them all. I refuse to be involved in questionable business practices like this.
Loved that you exposed these greedy business men….with the voice you have growing I know it will have impact. Please keep doing this kind of work! Thank-you for doing this kind of work!
The designers name is mentioned in the text – Chloe Joe- but not linked or highlighted so it’s pretty minimal exposure at best.
I pretty much refuse to use free patterns for most things for this reason. Artists should be paid for their work, either directly or by the company offering their work. However loads of people just want free so DMC monetizes otvwoth floss kits & dumps the artist.
I love articles like this. Thanks for speaking up. Until someone says, “that’s worth something,” it’s the default for many creatives to feel their contribution should be unpaid. I learned my own value from a colleague who made it explicit. Keep spreading the word!
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, this is just another way of exploiting and devaluing women’s work while someone else gets to make profit from it. I will not be buying DMC products until they change this practice.
Thanks for posting this article Abby. I don’t find it surprising DMC isn’t offering money however in this digital age in lieu payment I would expect a lot more than the links they haven’t historically supplied.
There will always be women who, for a myriad of reasons, are willing to work for free but DMC’s shameless exploitation is really something to draw attention too. It brings to mind Stampington & Company’s miserly and disrespectful treatment of their contributing artists. At least they had the decency to add the artists email address at the bottom of the printed page.
Hannah Manton’s comment “The patterns are given for free to the community, as are all our patterns, so we don’t make any money from the competition” is patently untrue and demonstrates how unprepared she was to answer for her company’s exploitation.
Of course they make money with every element of this campaign and there’s no shame in that. They’re a business that strategizes ways to make more because greed is the name-of-the-game. What’s offensive is that they’re actively engaged in the slave trade and pretending otherwise. Every dollar paid out is less profit for the stakeholders.
I’m curious to know what the connections were between DMC and BlueGem Capital Partners prior to the bankruptcy. There will always be business people capitalizing on current market opportunities. It can be repellent that’s true but equally sad is our own willingness to go along with it.
If DMC aka BlueGem Captial Partners offered links; feature artists pages; a feature in their 100,000 member elist send; an Instagram promotional boost; Twitter or anything else that demonstrated a willingness to support the very people it only exploits that would be different. There’s more than one way to compensate someone without cash exchanging hands.
That said, I think it time to put our money where our mouths are. Stop buying their products. I love to embroider and use it almost daily, but you know what? It wouldn’t kill me to switch or quit altogether for a time. As creative women we can actually put our dollars and our talents to other uses. Unless we’re willing to do more than share words in our echo chamber I don’t see the incentive for companies like DMC to change toward us little women. I say screw ‘em.
Each pattern that is part of the project has a page on the DMC website and, although the artist’s name appears, it isn’t hyperlinked nor do they get a full profile making it difficult for consumers to learn more about them.
I am sad to say that I don’t think DMC is the only company that does this. I will be abstaining from purchasing any products produced by them until this policy is changed. I am not holding my breath.
Unfortunately, there are a LOT of free patterns available on the internet. What is the impact on our crafting industries, and to the designers? I have a friend who is a very prolific quilter, and she has not purchased a pattern in a couple of years. I have used many free quilting patterns and have not given much thought to the consequences. (I am not as familiar with embroidery patterns/designers, etc.) One of the biggest resources for free quilting patterns is Moda Bake Shop. Abby, what is your take on that resource? If I am correct, the designer can have a link to their website, as well as having the rights to their patterns. That being said, is it still a good idea to give it away? There is a trade off – giving your design away for free vs. gaining exposure – but is Moda the main benefactor here?
Hi Beth, I wrote about the Moda Bake Shop here: https://whileshenaps.com/2017/01/moda-bake-shop-contribute.html I think it is along the same lines, although they do a good job of including the designer’s profile and linking to his or her site. That being said, those patterns are often kitted by shops to help sell Moda fabrics, which Moda encourages, and the designers are paid in fabric.
Thank you, Abby, for your reply. (I think you may have put the wrong link, the Moda Bakeshop article was on 1.13.17)
I am working on designing quilting patterns and have thought about doing a Bakeshop pattern as a way to “advertise” once I launch a website. I would also consider submitting to magazines. In both cases it sounds like monetary compensation is not part of the deal, assuming the pay for a pattern in a magazine would not cover the cost of making the sample. Going into it, I would adopt the attitude that I want to gain exposure, and be ready to maximize that exposure by driving readers to my website and signing them up to an email list, and followers on instagram. Also, to have several irresistible patterns ready for purchase on my website.
From what I understand, the fabric companies and magazine publishers are having a hard time financially. If that is the case, is their strategy to utilize the willingness of designers for free patterns a smart move? Where would we designers be without their quality goods?
I guess there are 2 sides to every story, as the saying goes. It would be really nice to feel that the big companies are treating the individuals both fairly and ethically. Their needs to be more respect on the part of the companies for the individuals who are supporting them. Both entities need each other, but it is not a balanced playing field when an unknown individual is up against a large company.
Thank you, I fixed the link! I think there’s a symbiotic relationship here between designers and suppliers. Not all companies in the sewing industry are having a hard time and many do pay designers a fair wage for their work. In the embroidery floss world, as an example, Sulky pays the designers and bloggers they work with.
Beth, not sure how to make you see this, but I know that *lots* of fabric companies will provide free fabric for magazine samples/projects 🙂
My spidey senses tingled when DMC didn’t answer about the copyright on IG and my hackles fully raised when I read they intended it as a competition for professional designers whilst offering a hobbyist’s goody bag as the prize.
I was tempted to enter, seduced by the glory of possibly winning and by how their exposure could help grow my account, but since then I’ve loosely monitored how much impact a repost from DMC has on a stitcher’s IG following and though I can’t be exact, the numbers aren’t plentiful enough to consider it a great reward for the work.
I’ve decided to see my entry through to the end but release it on my own blog instead where it’ll add value to my website rather than just adding value to theirs alone. I really appreciate you getting to the nitty gritty as it helped me make the decision. Thank you, Abby!
This has been true in the craft industry for a long time. DMC, as a large and historic company, in going to this method of soliciting designers, is not the only perpetrator. And if designers (most but not all of whom are women) don’t ask for pay and better pay, the situation will never change. DMC management’s been upended up for a long time and good ole Walmart had a lot to do with it. Walmart negotiated a deal to carry DMC floss (must have been 20-25 or so years ago) and DMC probably thought they’d arrived at the pearly gates. Huge orders were placed for the flosses and DMC was scrambling to fill these huge orders. Then the conditions started to come down: DMC had to supply their own displays and ship at their expense. OK. Except that at the time, DMC flosses were displayed in a metal several tier roundabout turning display, meant to be set in a store corner and twirled. The flosses were displayed in pie-shaped trays and when the display was full, it looked like a brightly lit Christmas tree. The displays were not cheap and they were heavy. DMC took a blow shipping to the US. And then the floss orders were cut. Instead of a full order of all the colors which filled the trays of the twirling metal display, Walmart orders were severely trimmed. When one of these metal twirling displays was set up, it immediately looked as though the floss was already on sale or going out of business. Pathetic and ragged from the get-go. Then Walmart nixed the metal stand-alone displays and DMC, to sell their floss,had to go back to the drawing board to design and manufacture and ship (at their expense) a lighter weight display that could be hung on the pegboard aisles of the sewing departments. From this point of DMC being sold to Walmart and with this deal’s problems and challenges, I think the brand had suffered. I know that most crossstitch and embroidery patterns reference DMC but there are numerous alternatives so even if you run out of a color, you can find an excellent substitute. This blog, written only four days ago, has lots of links for thread conversion charts. We owe this person a big round of applause–best round-up of info in a long time. Cut-n-paste into browser.
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/conversion-charts-for-embroidery-thread-and-floss-1177518
Wow, what an eye-opening comment from Pepper Corey. Clearly a revealing experience dealing with a mass marketer as Walmart. Akin to making a deal with the devil. Big box retailers will suck up all your manufacturing capacity, your agreement to sell to someone like Walmart will anger all your other customers, thus companies like DMC can end up losing many of them. Now you’re down to ONE huge customer, gobbling up all of your capacity, making impossible demands, which have to be met because you’ve gone past the point of no return with your loss of customer base. Then, when Walmart changes their mind, and stops stocking your product, or severely restricts what they will sell, your profits go into the toilet, and you have no other customers to fall back on. And, good luck trying to recapture those customers who left you due to your contract with Walmart.
But, what saddens me more, in reading through all of DMC’s comments on their Instagram post, was their very poor, defensive, and sometimes even snarky responses to many folks who questioned their tactics. Instead of being smart about their responses, they decided to be reactive and rude. Rude to the very people they depend upon, to provide them with free artwork/patterns. If I were this person’s boss, I would be considering firing them, honestly. They had a perfect opportunity to extend some goodwill during this Instagram exchange, but instead, they opted to post some pretty insulting retorts. If they, instead, had posted something like, “Folks, you know, you are bringing up some very good points. Let us take a step back and consider your suggestions, which we appreciate. We want to support our artists and our industry, and we want everyone to be successful with our 1000 Pattern Project”.
A company they can take a lesson from, with respect to supporting up and coming artists that comes to mind is Frito Lay. If you remember their fantastic Super Bowl Ad contests in the past, where they ran a commercial contest for new filmmakers to submit their commercial to garner a spot on the Super Bowl. That was a great way to allow up and coming filmmakers to showcase their talent and work, give credit where credit is due, and to REALLY give new filmmakers exposure. If they patterned their contest after Frito Lay’s contest, it surely would go a much longer way to foster goodwill, and actually do what they are saying they want to do: Give up and coming artists exposure to grow their companies. It is so easy for DMC to do this: 1. Include the artists’ names and a short bio with their winning pattern entry. 2. Include a link to their web site/Etsy store, etc. on the pattern page 3. Provide the winners with a percentage of the profits from kitted threads that can go along with their pattern. 4. Feature each winner in an Instagram or blog post, so folks can learn about the artist. How hard can this be? How much farther do you think their goodwill might go with everyone, if they posted and said, “Hey, we hear you! We are revamping our contest to take into consideration all your great suggestions!” The most successful companies LISTEN TO THEIR CUSTOMERS. DMC, I know you’re reading Abby’s blog post on this. How about it? Are you willing to step up and do the right thing? Admit you were missing the boat a bit, and really, truly support your artists you depend upon, and garner a whole lot more customers by doing the right thing? #layingdownthegauntlet.
Where did they respond to comments? I’ve been looking and not finding any responses. Maybe they deleted them?
On the original post, the one with the same graphic as this post.
Great article Abby! Sharing as much as I’m able to raise awareness, including on my Facebook page (Fuzzy Fox Designs) 🙂
Let’s start using non-DMC floss colors for patterns to show that there are alternatives.
Yes, I think it’s time to start boycotting companies that so blatantly want designers to work for them for free. I didn’t know the same parent company owned DMC as Liberty of London but it explains a lot because I’ve heard from a fabric designer acquaintance that Liberty is also trying to get designers to work for them for free on special edition prints.
But the sad truth is that this kind of thing is happening elsewhere as well – I mean, the amount of volunteering women have to do for their children at school so that the schools can function and offer things like art and physical education, or in a lot of places just have supplies, is mindblowing. Full disclosure: I teach textile arts at my kids school as a volunteer. I partly love doing it but it partly kills me because it’s quite a bit of work. But without me and some other moms doing this, a large chunk of the school’s art education wouldn’t exist. It’s working for free though, if we want to call things by their names, and I constantly have to work on not resenting that fact. And let’s keep in mind that women with certain types of jobs aren’t be able to do this, or women who have to work a certain number of jobs.
Or adjuncting in academia: I don’t know how widely it’s known but about 75% of all classes in colleges, even Ivy League ones, are taught not by full-time faculty but by part-time adjuncts hired semester by semester. It gets worse though. For example, Southern Illinois University is now advertising “volunteer” teaching positions for alumni with advanced degrees in a “pilot program.” Think about it: to teach an entire course for a full semester, with prep, assignments to prepare, grading (OMG just the grading!) – and then pay someone nothing for doing it.
Our culture really devalues creative and educational work and I don’t see it getting better. This contest from DMC is just part of a pervasive and very problematic trend.
Correction: the alumni at SIU wouldn’t teach full courses but would contribute to them and not do grading (just rechecked the announcement – seems there was some backtracking after backlash on social media). It’s still free work.
Hey all! Look! DMC’s most recent insta post has a link to the site in the pic (which won’t work via the app, but is great if Instagramming from a laptop like me (I am a dinosaur, my phone dream is a new Nokia 3310 – I do everything via google chrome). They’re paying the winners now!!!!! ❤
I cancelled my subscription to the DMC newsletter and told them that they are not fooling us by saying that they are not making money off the patterns because they are free. It’s a marketing device to get more people to buy DMC floss. I wondered what happened when the price of floss went up about a year ago. The company is no longer owned by craftspeople -just greedy corporate manipulators. Sad state of things. I actually wrote several times to give them my opinion. I wish I had not bought so much DMC floss. I will check out Anchor company and see who they are.
As one of the designers who submitted protest patterns, I can say that I am thrilled that DMC listened to us. It is absurd that we had to go to such lengths to make them see reason. It would be nice to hear some sort of apology from them, but I’m not holding my breath. Thank you for alerting us to what they were doing.
I am not amazed by DMC, they have a politics of marketing threads to the retailers very particular.
On the other hand I am positively surprised by the reactions because from the moment it is free, generally the people defend the one who offers.
Your article explains very well that it is in fact the disguised theft and that DMC has no morale.