Fashion should slip out of your hands. The very idea of protecting the seasonal arts is childish. One should not bother to protect that which dies the minute it is born.”
- Coco Chanel
This amazing insight by Mademoiselle flies in the face of today's party line: that foisting fakes on unsuspecting shoppers is the Fashionland version of crimes against humanity. "The fight against fashion piracy is a critical issue within the fashion industry," melodramatizes Steven Kolb, CEO of the CFDA. "Educating shoppers about the dangers of counterfeits is now more important than ever, and it’s an issue that’s incredibly important." (necklace)
Dangers? Wow.
The fact is, these pirates Kolb is shaking his fist at actually help the top tier designers. "Fashion relies on trends, and trends rely on copying," explains Kal Raustiala, author of The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation. "Copying helps condense the market into something that consumers can understand, so people want to follow trends, they want to be able to dress in a way that's in style; they have to understand that...When you have copies, it means you have multiple things competing in the marketplace that are similar. And if they compete on price, then consumers have an option that they wouldn't otherwise have."
The information element of copied or "pirated" fashion is interesting and in my opinion doesn't get the respect it deserves. Why? Because fashion, otherwise, is a game that only the 1% would be able to afford - and for the rest of us to want to play, we need to understand the sartorial language being "spoken". How? By "speaking" it ourselves - by wearing it - rather than just watching it from afar via coverage of the red carpet and pix of it on the backs of society mavens. "Tell me and I forget," the Chinese Confucian philosopher Xunzi (312-230 BC) famously observed. "Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."
By being involved - ie. being able to afford to purchase an item that's in fashion - the masses become involved. And by being involved, they learn. And learning fashion is what drives the industry - at all levels, including the most rarefied price points. And besides, the masses that purchase knock-offs couldn't afford the originals anyways, so their purchases aren't cutting into designers' profits. "The key question when it comes to counterfeits is not the number of people on six-figure salaries who buy them," observes Susan Scafidi, a law professor, expert on fashion trademarks and copyrights and the longtime blogger behind CounterfeitChic.com. "Rather, it's the number of people, on whatever income, who in the absence of the counterfeit would have bought the real thing instead. And against that one must weigh the number of genuine buyers who, without the extra brand recognition afforded by the global counterfeiting industry, would never have found that brand desirable in the first place and wouldn't have bought the real thing."
(Comme des Garcons via source)
This extra brand recognition, it could be argued, actually adds to the overall bottom line. "So you can think of copying as a turbocharger," continues Raustiala. By driving the industry and spinning the fashion cycle faster, it also drives designers to come up with new designs sooner, spurring fashion innovation. "We need to think about the big picture: What's going to grow this industry and make it successful, create jobs, create a robust sector. And in doing that, I think it's clear that the American approach is to allow copying in the apparel industry."
- Lesley Scott
FAKING IT: Originals, Copies, and Counterfeits at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum in NYC through April 25, 2015 examines this heated topic by showcasing originals, knock-offs and items living in the nebulous gray area known as "inspired by."
NOTE: Wrestling with how to preserve the legacy of the past to forge a fashionable way forward is a hallmark of the Folkspun fashion tribe. For more of my posts & podcasts about this tribe, CLICK HERE. To learn more about each of fashion's four mega-tribes that I track, START HERE.
(bag via source)
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