Copy Protection Of Fashion Design Is A Futile Exercise - Speech or Presentation Example

?Copy Protection Of Fashion Design Is A Futile Exercise Fashion is a multi-billion dollar industry that thrives on the capability of people to continuously evolve from one fashion design to another as these clothes images are presented by various fashion houses then improved upon or stylized by other smaller, lesser known fashion makers. It is through this practice of taking the design of one and re-imagining it that the fashion industry in America manages to thrive and exist even during times of depression. People after all need clothes that look good and fashionable in one way or another in order to feel good about themselves. It is because we allow smaller fashion houses to thrive on the basis of free enterprise and competition that fashion has not become an overpriced, elitist representation of modern civilization that can only be afforded by a few. That is the exact description of what happens to the fashion industry of a country such as France, once the copyrighting of fashion designs become legal. What is that you say? America is the land of free enterprise and equal opportunity for all? You may have to rethink that stand as it applies to our world of fashion in the near future. That is because the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) found a champion for the cause they are advocating through Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and his Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (IDPPA). Imagine that, a Democrat senator from the fashion capital of our country is trying to throttle our very own fashion industry on the say so of a small group of fashion designers who, led by Diane von Furstenberg, do not understand nor realize that the law they are trying to pass in these modern times of fast changing business ideas and evolving trends was already thrown out by our very own Supreme Court all the way in the 1940's due a similar law from that era proving to be in violation of America's anti-trust laws. Groups and people such as those I have mentioned above have this misconception that the fashion industry in our country is dying and needs to be protected from the so-called “knock-offs” or poor man's copies of the current trends as set forth by well known fashion designers from across the word. Their reason for believing that “dress for less” in a high fashion style is bad? These small fashion houses have the ability to mass produce an exact replica or a modified replica (as is always the case) of the current fashion trends fresh off the fashion runway of New York. People like Furstenberg are elitists who, in my humble opinion, believe that high couture belongs only in the hands of the ruling elite, while run of the mill fashion belongs to everyone else. What is truly ironic about these people's cause is that they are led by a woman (Furstenberg) who would actually be found guilty of violating the IDPPA. She credits herself and bemoans the fact her design for a green wrap around dress, which is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been redesigned and modified countless times by innumerable fashion designers without giving her the acknowledgment that is due her as the creator of the “original” design. However, a quick look into the history of this type of fashion design dates all the way back to the time of the ancient Greeks who had men and women sporting the earliest designs of the wrap as part of the dress fashion of ancient times. Not to forget also that, according to Johanna Blakely (2011) : “If credit were to be given to the “creator,” many students of fashion would probably think you meant Claire McCardell, a successful American designer who introduced a wrap-around dress to the American market in 1942. It was called the “popover” and it was originally made of denim, but she eventually transformed the design for dresses, coats and beach wraps. “ The above scenario further proves the futility of copy righting a design to only one person for a period of 3 years as prescribed in the IDPPA. One only has to realize that fashion in every sense of the word is a mere rehash of past designs, updated to what designers feel would give it a more “modern” approach and appeal to the new age market that it is being presented to. I pored over the fashion history books in the library as I researched material for this argumentative paper and came to the conclusion that fashion for both men and women can only presented a certain number of ways. The only thing that keeps the design fresh and innovative are the various small modifications made by other designs based upon their predecessors work or their current imagination. In other words, there is nothing whatsoever original about fashion itself. Even the fashion houses in Europe where this sort of copyrighting for fashion designs exist have to admit that they take a tremendous amount of inspiration from their own past work of the influence of previous fashion masters who are no longer part of our world, thus leaving their “original: designs and creation up for grabs by modern stylists. Under the IDPPA, any future designs from fashion houses would have to be registered and placed under protected domain, a move which would leave fashion conscious, but financially strapped Americans out of the loop because these designs, covering everything from “...clothing to shoes, purses, wallets, belts, specialty fabrics, and even the event and designs from one-off fashion shows are protected. “ (Steffen, 2011) would be too expensive for them to afford. In a way, it would also make the same items too expensive for the elite that they cater to because the process of registering the items for copyrighting would tack on charges for the cost of the copy protection and the legal fees of the lawyers whom these entities would hire to defend themselves from any perceived imitations once the item is copy protected. They would be pricing themselves out of the market ! The good senator from New York has his heart in the right place trying to protect an industry that, according to the small group represented by the CDFA, is dying due to the commercially available and easily affordable, modified version available at malls and department stores. In house brands from Macy's, K-Mart, and the like are perceived to be the harbingers of doom for the big fashion houses because their versions of the original product come at a more affordable cost. These are the fashion stores that specialize in affordable couture, which even the elite can appreciate in these hard economic times. Therefore, the solution to the perceived problem is not the curtailing of the freedom of choice for the individual, but rather, the creation of more affordable products from the high class fashion houses. Something which the likes of Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and others, have learned to do. By adopting a mass produced stance for their fashion designs, they have managed to infiltrate the in house branding segment of stores like Kmart and Target, thus keeping their fashion designs within their control (in a certain way) and tapping into the pockets of the people who may not have been able to afford their fashion if they had not done so in the first place. In a way, America has a unique fashion sense because we do not have copyrighted fashion designs. We actually have a democratized fashion world, which is something to be emulated instead of throttled. In the end, fashion is all about “interpreting” one another's designs (Raustiala & Springman, 2010). After all, the real problem in the fashion industry is not the fact that designers get “inspiration” from one another, but rather, that there are unscrupulous individuals who copy their labels which are protected under the trademark laws. The fashion industry of America does not need protecting, it thrives under the copycat enterprise. Those small fashion houses that create modified versions of the current trends? They don't misrepresent the items as high fashion from an original fashion house. They represent themselves on the shelves. So where is the actual harm? It's the fake designer label fashion coming in from Asia that pose the real threat to our industry. References Blakely, Johanna. (2010, Sept. 27). Cramping Our Style: Why Copyright Protection Will Hurt Fashion. Need To Know On PBS. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/voices/cramping-our-style/3865/ Raustiala, Kal & Springman, Chris. (3, Mar. 2010). Behind the Scenes of Oscar Fashion. Freakonomics. Retrieved from http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/03/03/behind-the-scenes-of-oscar-fashion/ Raustiala, Kal & Springman, Chris. (2010, Mar. 12). Should Fashion be Protected by Copyright Laws? A Guest Post. Freakonomics. Retrieved from http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/03/12/should-fashion-be-protected-by- copyright-laws-a-guest-post/ Raustiala, Kal & Springman, Chris. (2010, Aug. 10). Copyrighting Fashion: Who Gains?. Freakonomics. Retrieved from http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/08/30/copyrighting-fashion-who-gains/ Steffen, Krystina, (2011, Mar. 23). Fashion Copyright Legislation Proposed by Senator Schumer May Protect Designers. Good Practice Writer. 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