Licensing inception and foundational frameworks

Inception of Licensing

The inception of Fashion licensing first began with industry designers like Pierre Cardin who sought to make their brands more available to the mass public, thereby creating a larger stream of revenue for themselves (Cooney). The inception of fashion licensing has been beneficial for both the consumer and the producers. For many years now, beginnings in the early 1900's entrepreneurs like Walt Disney have leased the licensing rights to their brands in order to capitalize on the popularity of their ideas and products (Brookman 3). So it is safe say to consumers all around the world have grown up in a world where licensed products of are desirable and extremely popular due to the advertising industry and their association with name brands. Licensing is good for the fashion industry because it allows designers to connect with the mass public and vice versa.

Before the inception of licensing top Designers like Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Pierre Cardin were not able to truly share their products, they were limited in terms of what they could put in the hands of the average consumer. They needed to expand their horizons and claim a bigger share of the market. This would have been impossible if they were not able to enter agreements with clothing manufacturers and license their brands. By licensing their brands they were able to open an immense revenue stream for their brands while at the same time providing consumer with products that they enjoyed and made them happy. The fact that licensed named brand are available to the average consumer help the fashion industry because it provides increases in income and also popularity for designers as the public is able to experience and enjoy firsthand the products of designers as opposed to only seeing these on the fashion runway. It gives the fashion industry more exposure, popularity and notoriety is always good for any industry.

It would be very difficult for the fashion industry to survive during these very hard economic times without licensing agreements. They are a very large source of income for designers and their teams, without agreement with manufacturers designers would very likely be unable to provide consumers with the product they demand. If designers are not able to get their products out there to the public it is very likely that their popularity would decrease and hurt the fashion industry. Licensing is a huge part of the industry because logically speaking the true work or designers that are seen in the runway in not available in mass markets where revenue can be created. This is because the work and designs presented on the runaway are too outlandish, expensive or simply not able to be manufactured in mass amounts, so designers are forced to enter into licensing agreements. According to Cooney there are some negative affects to licensing agreements these involved the quality and specifications of some of the products being licensed. For example, a designer might lease his brand to manufacturer who does not do provide a product worthy to be associate with that designer; this can hurt the image and reputation of that designer. By that same account the public is also somewhat deceived because many designers will sell brands to manufactures without actually being involved in any aspect of the design. This seems unfair because the public is inspired to purchase brands because of their assumed association with the work of top designers. Currently in the fashion industry there are a wide ranging variety of products being licensed. These include all kinds of clothing, pants, hats, socks, underwear. According to Faye Brookman T-shirts are especially popular bearing the names of everything from soft drink brands to television shows.