Tuesday

Making the Front Page of The New York Times Today: The Fashion Copy-Cat Outrage!

Left, a dress from the Versace Spring/Summer '07 collection, which retailed for $1,685 when it was offered by Neiman Marcus this spring. On the right from Bebe, which sells their most expensive comparable dress for about $130. Forever 21 also sold a similar dress later in the summer.

Adding to the copyright debate....on today's front page of the NY Times and coinciding very purposely with New York fashion week:

"Before Models Can Turn Around, Knockoffs Fly'

Having worked deep within the depths of this issue (particularly in how items are manufactured for big department stores private labels), I've seen first hand how the 'copying' process goes down, and it ain't' pretty girls. New York is a mecca for companies whose sole purpose it is to dissect emerging trends and translate (aka copy/steal) them into affordable pieces carried by large mainstream stores and small alike.

The NY Times article does a great job of revealing the process behind the scenes. Oh, and however which way you feel about the issue, I couldn't leave out this fantastic quote from the copycat designer they focused on:

"She sees her work meeting the needs of the vast majority of consumers who cannot afford designer prices. “Especially the younger girls do not have so much money,” Ms. Anand said, “but they want to wear fashionable clothes.”

“They want to look fabulous,” she said. “It’s their right to look fabulous.”

Love it.

Enjoy!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

'The factory, in Jaipur, India, can deliver stores a knockoff months before the designer version,'
- that bit from the article gave be a bit of a shock.

I can't decide if this is ultimately good or bad for fashion though? Perhaps, it makes no difference at all?

Mrs Fashion said...

I wish that high street stores would make fabulous clothes without them being copies of others... This could run and run but I love how your blog always asks the big questions!
x

Flashy_Shades said...

i am on the fence, i can't bring myself to buy the knockoffs, but i do like that "right to look fabulous" principle.

Anonymous said...

It's a hard one. The hight street wouldnt have its fashion fix appeal if it wasnt knocking off 'real fashion'. That said - there are limits - and Topshop got into some serious trouble lately when they copied a Chloe dress without chaning enough.

In short, there's taking influence and there's taking the p*ss.

Great debate!

Liberty London Girl said...

Am so bored with cheapo knock offs. Inspired by is one thing: blatant copy is quite another...xx