Inspired or Copycat?

It's becoming a trend lately that people use the word 'inspired' to justify plagiarism. I wanted to do my search for Maysaa's scarf recently and found out a lot of people out there mentioned "Inspired by Hana Tajima" on their marketing. Hana Tajima is famous for her Chiffon Scarf Snood and the Bonnet, of course, many are 'inspired'. There's another site which sells a suit that looks like Chanel's famous tweed jacket and called it Chanel inspired. What does that mean? The workmanship is terrible and while it looks like Chanel's tweed jacket, it is definitely far from the original and kind of an embarrassment to use Coco Chanel's name at all. And as I'm writing this, on my FB wall, someone posted "Inspired by Coach" and they are selling Coach knockoffs at RM80. You are not inspired, you are using their logo and their designs! Shame on you. You see, you like, you stole (the idea)? 

Rizalman Ibrahim, one of the few famous Malaysian designers have stressed this calamity time and time again, copying someone's idea or work just because you like it doesn't make it right. He came out with glamorous kaftan, and lo and behold.... every 'designer' in town went for that look with some twists here and there. Some looks cheap and some looks cheap. Nothing beats the original i would say but it's an eyesore and heartache to see your creative idea stolen. He came out with a concept of hantaran, put them on his blog and many out there sharpen their skill to copy just exactly. 

You are inspired by a certain thing, for example a building in KL and you design your clothes based on that inspiration. You like your mom's vintage handbag details and driven to create something that reminds of you of that particular object. Your little sister's crazy for hairband inspire you to make hair accessories. You are inspired to create your own work based on a certain idea or subject but you cannot downright plagiarize just because you think it's okay that you mentioned the designer name in the line. It's just does not make it right! 

Words can be manipulated, for example... second hand Benz is called pre-owned.. but using inspired by for plagiarizing is so low, at least in my humble opinion.