Point: I've never felt particularly strongly about fashion plagiarism. My logic has always been that yes, major chains copy high fashion designers all the time, but that high fashion designers copy vintage and street style all the time, so that at some point the situation becomes karmically balanced. Plagiarism cases that have gotten a lot of press recently have been Gwen Stefani's and Anna Sui's lawsuits against Forever 21. My response to lawsuits like these has always been that it's hard for me to feel sorry for rich movie stars or designers and that furthermore, chains like Forever 21 aren't stealing a designer like Anna Sui's business because the customer who habitually shops at Anna Sui is almost never the customer who habitually shops at Forever 21 or H&M or Zara. In other words, these mass market copies of designer clothes are catering to mass market customers (like me), not to upscale shoppers who would actually shop at Sui's boutiques. If I buy a dress that looks like something knocked-off of the Marc by Marc Jacobs line at one these large chains, I just don't feel like I'm stealing any one's intellectual property because Marc by Marc Jacobs stuff is so over-priced and derivative in the first place. When plagiarism functions within this bounded system of major designer to large chain, it doesn't bother me. (although I acknowledge that this line of argument puts aside the conditions under which Forever 21 clothes are produced, which are most likely deplorable and the subject of a whole other post)
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Counter-Point: I didn't think much about the other side of the fashion plagiarism argument until my friend who's a furniture designer/carpenter complained to me the other day that designers have few recourses to traditional legal action when one of their designs gets copied (unlike writers who have copyright law and an easier time of proving that their work has been plagiarized (thanks Library of Congress!). My friend the furniture designer told me that in fact, young obscure designers (of clothing, furniture, textiles, etc.) have their work copied constantly, which often prevents them from making their names and their reputations on their own designs. Fashionista reported yesterday that they met a jewelry designer, Bliss, at Gen Art who claimed that her designs had been plagiarized by model Erin Wasson. Wasson's copied pieces accessorized rising fashion star Alexander Wang's Fall '08 runway show. Bliss alleged that Wasson copied her design after purchasing a piece from the designer. And it gets worse....then Wasson wore Bliss' original piece in a Nylon's spread about Wasson's designs, passing off the necklace as her own. If it's true, it's really a dick move on Wasson's part, but how can the little guy (or girl, as is the case here) be protected from such infringements?
In most cases, these copyright infringement cases seem like the rich fighting the rich for the right to rip off designs that aren't so terribly original in the first place, but in Bliss' case and in many other younger designers' cases, it's almost tragic that their work is being stolen. Also, who's to say that big, established designers don't copy young, struggling designers?
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