Copycat poised to pounce in Paris

See it on the catwalks this week. See it in the shops in a month’s time. When the ready-to-wear shows began in Paris on Tuesday, teams of designers for high street stores were poised to spring into action.
Thanks to their efforts, strikingly similar mass-market versions of the latest designer outfits will be in the shops within weeks – and at a fraction of the price.
Some call it “taking inspiration”. For others it’s copying or ripping off designers’ work. Nearly everyone agrees it’s pervasive and there’s little the industry’s top talents can do about it.
Before the catwalk models even kick off their high heels, designers for big-name retailers will be poring over the pictures on the Internet and homing in on the trendiest looks.
In some companies, specialist pattern-cutters and tailors will be on standby ready to “whip something up literally within 24 hours”, says Jane Banyai of the British designers’ trade organisation Acid.
In the 1950s, copies of Paris Match magazine with images from fashion shows appeared covered in thick black lines to prevent the designs being copied. Fashion shows then were exclusive affairs at which only a few privileged invitees were lucky enough to get a glimpse of the next season’s trends.
Today designers have far less control and pictures from the shows can be zipping around the world within seconds with just a few clicks of a camera-phone.
“It’s terribly easy for things to be reproduced – a photograph can be out in Asia within seconds and they can be in production within minutes,” says Banyai.
With so many imitation garments in circulation, fashion magazines delight in showing their readers pricey designer pieces and high street versions with more modest price tags.
Kal Raustiala, a law professor at UCLA and co-author of the book “The Knockoff Economy” says the practice is so widespread that most designers feel powerless to stop it. “Knockoffs are everywhere. They’re almost an accepted part of the reality of this world.”
Raustiala became interested in the subject after a friend who worked in fashion told him about a “comparison shopping” trip he had been on to London. “I think there are different phrases used, but what he was doing was going around London looking at clothes, taking pictures and bringing things back to copy. I was surprised to find out that it was legal and that it was common practice.” He believes it’s the legality rather than the Internet that’s responsible for “turbocharging” copycat fashion.
Michael Chan, a New York-based intellectual-property lawyer, usually advises clients not to go to court. “If it’s a question of ‘I have a particular leopard-print pattern’ and someone else makes a slightly different one – well, the cycle is too fast to do anything.
“I wouldn’t advise clients to go after it. They might, but you’re probably just taking resources away from your business. Unless you have some particular reason you want to do it, you just have to let it go.”
Designers do sue sometimes. Yves Saint Laurent famously sued Ralph Lauren for copying a tuxedo-dress from his 1992-3 couture collection and won. In 2007 British retail chain Topshop had to discard 1,000 dungaree-look yellow mini-dresses after losing a copyright case brought by the Chloe fashion house.
Topshop boss Philip Green at the time utterly refuted that the dress was a copy, but the company agreed to pay compensation and cover legal costs to avoid a protracted legal wrangle.
Banyai says most big brands are too busy with the coming season to care about who might or might not have copied them last season, but it’s more of an issue for smaller designers.
“There’s a real dichotomy between the small players and the big players. For the small ones, whether you sell a particular range can be the bread and butter on your table. For the big ones, they have another three collections that year to worry about, so they don’t seem to be so concerned about it. They see it as flattery.”
All acknowledge, however, that copying is far from a new problem. “You can go back to the Great Depression and there are accounts of how, within 24 hours, dresses were being copied,” says Raustiala. “In the 1930s they would just steal a sketch from the art boy.”