Fashion Knockoffs: Perils and Prevention in a Global Industry

Introduction

What's in a name? Quite a lot, if it is the name of an author, artist, musician, or inventor. A wide range of artistic creations and commercial products sell much better when they are produced by talented and recognized individuals. Creative minds spend weeks, months, even years coming up with the ideas and designs for everything from books and movies to songs, posters, automobiles, and iPods. Often a great deal of money is required to develop these concepts and bring them to market. The originators of these ideas enjoy exclusive rights to their work, and their genius is protected by a host of copyrights, patents, and trademarks.

In the realm of fashion, consumers spend billions each year on original designs for clothing, shoes, eyewear, perfumes, and the like. Highly skilled designers devote considerable amounts of time and money to the development of these goods. Yet are these designer creations protected in the same way as other forms of intellectual property? Fashion designers lose enormous sums of money each year to inexpensive knockoffs — imitation goods sold at cut-rate prices. Nearly every product the high-end designer produces is reproduced by some competing manufacturer. Though attempts have been made to stop the practice, current laws are woefully inadequate. Whether sold by major consumer outlets or barely legal back-alley vendors, upscale fashion designers must fight a never-ending battle against those who rob them of the legitimate fruits of their own imaginations.

The Origin of the Knockoff

The counterfeiting of fashion items such as clothing, shoes, and handbags was rare until the popular introduction of the designer label in the 1950s. As fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton began to use their names as a design element on the actual products they produced, consumers from all walks of life and all income levels began to associate designer names with high-quality fashions.

The social revolution of the 1970s, however, expanded the possibilities of counterfeiting from an original luxury domain into that of common garments as fashion moved to keep pace with cultural trends. Clothing such as blue jeans, which had formerly been associated strictly with working men and children, came to be connected to the freedoms of a new era.

The same baby boomers who had worn Levi's as young boys and girls continued to wear those same styles after they had fought the battles of the 1960s. The 1970s saw an explosion of designer jean labels and a corresponding growth in the financial possibilities of the market. The rebels of the 1960s became the yuppies of the 1970s and 1980s, and, "With respect to the explosion of luxury goods, the yuppie stands front and center. Yuppies were one of the first communities since the Renaissance known almost entirely through their display of goods." For those unable to afford the true yuppie price tag, knockoffs provided a cheap way of competing with one's peers and remaining fashionable.

Knockoffs: A New Aspect of the Global Economy

As demand for knockoffs grew, clever entrepreneurs found new ways both to make money and to satisfy that demand. Across the globe, millions of men, women, and children in developing nations desperately need jobs that, if not actually paying a living wage, will at least permit them to scrape by. The Third World sweatshop is an ideal place to produce knockoffs of high-end merchandise, whether these be designer jeans and dresses or handbags and perfumes. Most knockoffs come from East Asia, though increasingly designer products may also be produced in Turkey or even Italy.

Many Americans bring knockoffs back with them from trips to Mexico and other locations where such products are openly sold. In 2003, United States Customs and Border Protection agents seized $94 million worth of goods being carried by Americans crossing the Mexican border. In total, an estimated $200 billion in counterfeit designer merchandise is sold in the United States every year.

Further enhancing the market — and further confusing the consumer — many legitimate manufacturers produce goods that are similar to, but not identical with, actual designer products, while others are sold under the names of actual manufacturers but with the caveat that their authenticity cannot be guaranteed. These goods can easily be sold openly in department stores and on internet sites.

Fashion Knockoffs and the Law

Unfortunately, the law is relatively lax where the counterfeiting of designer fashions is concerned. In contrast to other creations of individuals and corporations, clothing and other apparel designs are not protected by intellectual property laws in anything like the same way. Specifically, clothing is not protected by trademarks, copyrights, or patents because, under the law, it is considered a "useful article."

In other words, because clothing is something everyone uses, it is theoretically something that anyone could manufacture out of necessity. In a sense, designer fashions are still being regarded as mere variants of some sort of universal necessity. Perhaps this thinking goes back to the days of pattern books and fashion dolls, both of which were sold and distributed for the express purpose of allowing the possessor of the "model" to reproduce the original either exactly or in the form of some minor variant.

Governments such as that of the People's Republic of China actively flout international conventions. They purchase their equipment legally on the global market, visit trade shows, and then use low-paid labor — and even prisoners — to sell their counterfeited goods at prices that undermine the businesses of legitimate designers.

Conclusion

Fashion knockoffs are a major problem that costs designers scores of billions of dollars each year, endangers reputations, and stunts creativity. Everything from clothing to shoes to handbags is copied or imitated to such an extent that many legitimate designers find it difficult to market their creations without having to fend off competition from less expensive, inferior goods. Many developing nations see in counterfeiting a convenient additional source of income and employment. Nations like China, Taiwan, Turkey, and Mexico supply much of the market in knockoff fashions. American tourists bring back counterfeit merchandise as well. These counterfeit goods are sold openly and legally in stores and on the internet, and also illicitly in back alleys and barely legal markets.

Many items are copied directly from their originals and produced either domestically by unscrupulous operators or abroad in countries that do not enforce intellectual property rights — or that actively connive in the manufacture of counterfeit goods as a means of earning hard currency. Contributing to the problem is the almost complete absence of laws governing intellectual ownership of clothing, shoes, handbags, and similar items. Considered goods of utility, they have traditionally been available for all to copy.

Designers, retailers, and government officials must work hand in hand to ensure that existing laws are applied and that concepts of intellectual property are extended where necessary. Designers, too, can protect their creations by adhering to the highest principles of marketing and ensuring that they and their competitors follow proper procedures in bringing items from the design stage to the selling floor. Knockoffs can be curtailed, but it will be a hard fight.

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