Swedes complain about Marc Jacobs scarf

ARVIKA, Sweden, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- A scarf marketed by U.S. fashion designer Marc Jacobs looks surprisingly like one created in northern Sweden in the 1950s, it was reported Wednesday.

"It looks like a clear case of plagiarism," said Goran Olofsson, who says his father, Gosta Olofsson, long ago produced "about a thousand" of the scarves that he designed to celebrate the northern Swedish county of Harjedalen, The Local reported Wednesday.

The scarves include depictions of a small church, wooden huts, bears, flowers and the coat of arms of Harjedalen.

Olofsson says the only difference between the scarf his father designed and the scarf Marc Jacobs currently offers is that the words "Marc Jacobs since 1984" appears on the new ones, The Local reported.

Olofsson said he wrote to the designer but hasn't received an answer.

"It looks he has just copied it straight off, this Marc guy. I definitely don't think he has been to Harjedalen," Malin Nyqvist, a spokeswoman for a Swedish tourist bureau, told The Local.