Adventures in Copyright

     My favorite fashion news outlet, Fashionista, has a regular post called "Adventures in Copyright" that showcases a designer's look that has been copied by someone else. These posts challenge the question of whether there should be copyright protection for fashion designs. Or maybe the fact that anyone can create what a designer made first is the way fashion revolves? I've created my own version of their posts to analyse these questions.

Tied Crochet Dress from Nasty Gal vs. Delicate Lace Top Body Con Dress from Charlotte Russe

     
      It's completely obvious that these two dresses are one in the same. Aside from a couple minor details, these dresses are mirror images, yet one is half the price. The Nasty Gal dress is $68, while the one from Charlotte Russe is $26.99. Lace overlay has been a big trend for a few years now, so the design for these dresses could have been taken from any designer. However, it looks very McQueen -inspired to me.

These looks from the Alexander McQueen Spring 2012 show have similar lace necklines.

      Earlier this year, I discovered Johanna Blakley's speech on TED about how the fashion industry actually benefits from this lack of protection. She has a philosophy that identifies with collaborative thinking; when people keep building off of an idea, there is more progress than someone keeping an idea to himself. The gross sales within industries without copyright protection such as fashion, automobiles, and food, are substantially higher than highly protected industries such as film, books, and music. This seems to prove that while little to no copyright protection may not help fashion designers in their own right, it's what keeps the industry flourishing. After all, designers are constantly taking ideas from the past to evolve their own work. The nature of fashion is to interpret one idea into another, so without copying ideas there wouldn't be innovation of new ones.