Copycat

BY LAUREN EDWARDS

Creativity is the cornerstone behind the trends that dominate the runways, magazines and our closets. Originality keeps brands afloat and can make even the smallest of companies the next best thing. However, with the rise of fast fashion and overnight sensations, creative agency in the fashion world has become murky water.

With both fast fashion and high-end brands being involved in recent scandals of stealing other brands’ designs, there’s a question of what is considered flattery and inspiration and what is just outright stealing. Many of these different high-end and fast fashion brands that have “borrowed” ideas are facing lawsuits and public scrutiny. Social media has played a big role in exposing this idea theft within the fashion industry and facilitating the widespread scrutiny of those brands. Plenty of big name designers have taken to their social media platforms to call out these knockoffs. Today, what is considered your brand’s original idea could easily be up for grabs.

Fast fashion brands and big name fashion designers ripping each other off is not a rare occurrence. So how do they get away with it? Fashion is not completely protected under American copyright law, so these big name brands are able to steal ideas from smaller brands. These copyright laws — written 40 years ago — position American fashion as a manufacturing industry instead of a creative industry. While music, art, literature and other creative industries are protected by copyright laws, there are no laws that prohibit members of the fashion industry from copying each other. This means that brands can freely steal ideas from each other without permission. The only way designers can try to protect their ideas is to patent the materials they use or trademark their brand’s name, logos and slogans. These decades-old laws deprive fashion — and the creativity that the industry is built upon — from legal protection, regardless of how prevalent knockoff designs have become.

Because of the lack of creative protection within the fashion industry and increasing publicity surrounding the issue, there have been efforts to establish stronger copyright laws and legal protection in the fashion world. The Council of Fashion Designers of America attempted to pass the Innovative Design Protection Act in 2012. Even though the bill was never voted on, the goal of the act was to provide protection for designers and their designs for a period of three years as long as they could thoroughly prove that their ideas were unique and never done before. Some of the major fast fashion brands that are common culprits of producing designer knockoffs are many of the names we know and love, including Forever 21, Zara and H&M. These stores are appealing to consumers — especially the young adult age group — because they are able to offer affordable, yet trendy clothes, often at the cost of other brands’ creative agency.

Forever 21 has had its fair share of fashion “plagiarism” incidents. Some notable cases committed by the brand include knockoffs of the Valfré rainbow phone case, the Wild Feminist t-shirt, a bathing suit from an indie swimwear line Love Peace Shea and many more. Zara has been called out for making knockoffs of everything from Balenciaga sneakers, Kanye West’s Yeezy sneakers, pins designed by Tuesday Bassen and sandals designed by Aurora James from Brother Vellies. More recently, H&M has been under scrutiny for using the same fonts on their clothing as both Russian designer Gosha Rubchinskiy and the Parisian brand Vetements.

Copying designs used to involve sneaking into fashion shows so see what was popular on the runway and taking mental pictures to go draw later. With social media today, the designs that are seen at fashions shows are available for the world to see and copy as soon as the models walk down the runway. According to jewelry designer Pamela Love for Business of Fashion, “Being copied by fast fashion designers really waters everything down. It makes our ideas less special, which ultimately hurts our business and our authenticity.”

On the contrary, some people believe that these copycatting fast fashion brands actually benefit the fashion industry. Professor of law at New York University and co-author of “The Knockoff Economy” Christopher Sprigman argues that copying is “the engine driving the fashion industry.”

“Copycats help create trends, and then help destroy them, paving the way for new ones to take their place. Without copying, the fashion industry would be smaller, weaker and less powerful.” In recent years, lawsuits and copyright infringements have blown up as fast fashion is on the rise. However, copycatting and knockoffs are not solely limited to low-end brands — designs are replicated throughout all levels of the fashion world. It’s important as creatives to understand the value of an idea and why it might mean more than just making something affordable.