On Dec 12, 2010, at 4:22 PM, Ben Finney wrote: > Rob Myers <[email protected]> writes: > >> On 12/12/10 05:56, Ben Finney wrote: >>> >>> It depends what you mean by “style”. >> >> Clothing designs. > > Okay, a concrete example of a style.
My understanding is something like "boyfriend blazer" or "lace-up boots" - they first appeared on the runways a couple seasons ago, but are really "hot" right now in terms of they've hit all the mass market venues and everyone's making versions left and right. > >> The economic and cultural evidence is that fashion thrives because of, >> not despite, the absence of state-granted monopolies on designs... > > Do we have a concrete example of someone making the case that government > or corporation should control a clothing design? Where is their > reasoning for us to examine? > > I ask because the easy answer seems to be “no, because all public > knowledge should be free culture”, which doesn't leave us much to > discuss. Well, high-end designers have forever been going after fast-fashion retailers such as Zara, H&M, and Forever 21 because they are notorious for knocking off designs. I can't find a picture right now, but I distinctly remember that my friend bought a Forever 21 tank top that looked exactly like a 3.1 Philip Lim design from that season. Again, no pictures, but this a summary of a case from a couple years ago: http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/copy-that-and-that/. There's also a humorous take in the NYT style section of someone hunting everywhere for a Zara knockoff of a Celine blouse - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/fashion/14Scavenger.html. This article in particular brings up some good points - the author is looking for a white silk celine blouse, but also mentions she finds a great "take on that great black-and-white sharp-shouldered Balmain jacket." It's an interesting use of "take on" - balmain's designs are usually pretty recognizable, to the point where someone familiar with fashion could say, oh that looks like Balmain (their Spring 2010 RTW collection was super glittery and military) so I'd be curious to see how much the tweaked the original design. It's hard to draw the line between "influenced" and "copied;" (and clearly one that comes up in all forms of media), but I hope this helps propel the discussion a little further. > > -- > \ “What is needed is not the will to believe but the will to find | > `\ out, which is the exact opposite.” —Bertrand Russell | > _o__) | > Ben Finney > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
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