Testimony of David Wolfe, Creative Director The ... - Public Knowledge

Introduction
How can an industry built upon open borrowing and
re-use of other people’s work thrive financially?
page 10 | Ready to Share: Fashion & the Ownership of Creativity
Unlike the online culture, however, modern fashion has
been practicing its brand of bricolage for decades. The
means by which vintage clothing is plundered for new ideas
are fairly well-established. We can examine the diversified
market ecology that popularizes haute couture at lower
price points and, simultaneously, elevates open “street
fashion” into high-priced designer styles. Fashion gives us a
window into the tension between the open commons and
the proprietary market. It helps us understand both the
contradictions and the synergies between the two, and how
each is indispensable to the other. Looking at creativity in
fashion gives us a richer, more complex appreciation for the
meaning of “originality” and the importance of imitation in
questions, as the title of our conference suggests, is whether
creative design is “ready to share.” The history of fashion
suggests that it is. Fashion designers routinely appropriate
and transform prior works, generating innovations that
reflect both their individual talents and different times
and contexts.
The first essay in this volume, “Between the Cracks, a Fertile
Commons: An Overview of the Relationship Between
Fashion and Intellectual Property,” by intellectual property
attorney Christine Cox and Duke Law professor Jennifer
Jenkins, offers an overview of the relationship between
fashion and intellectual property. Drawing upon fashion
designs of someone else’s garment can be lauded as genius
in fashion, but condemned as piracy in other creative fields?
Much of the answer seems to lie in the willingness of fashion
companies to acknowledge the larger ecology of innovation
— a frame of analysis that traditional copyright law
omits. Intellectual property law tends to ignore the fact that
creativity in real life must germinate within communities of
practice and creative traditions — and that privatizing those
communities and traditions only diminishes the feedstock
of future creativity. Rare among creative sectors, fashion
frankly acknowledges that there is little that is wholly
original or unprecedented. Timing and context are at least
as important as the originality that a designer contributes.
some of the leading works in this emerging arena. The
bibliography also includes works about the relationship
of fashion to the entertainment industry.
Some of the most exciting insights about fashion and
creativity emerged from the “Ready to Share” conference
itself, which was funded in part by a generous gift from the
Center for the Public Domain and sponsored by The Fashion
Institute for Design & Merchandising/FIDM. Included with
this book is a stand-alone DVD. The video incorporates highlights
of the conference — including comments by producer
Norman Lear, designer Tom Ford, New York Times reporter
Guy Trebay, Sex and the City creator Michael Patrick King
all creative endeavors.
history and congressional statutes, this article is a primer
and recording artist Danger Mouse — with a walking tour of
in the legal treatment of creativity in fashion. The authors
In the final essay, “Music & Fashion: The Balancing Act
New York fashion. Hosted by journalist Rick Karr with special
This naturally led us to wonder — how can an industry built
upon open borrowing and re-use of other people’s work
thrive financially? Doesn’t this contradict one of the core
premises of the traditional narrative for intellectual property
— that strict property rights are critical in order to reward
creators for coming up with new works and selling them in
the marketplace?
We conclude that a complex matrix of factors affects
creativity and economic sustainability in fashion. Intellectual
property rights, including copyright and trademark protec-
explain why fashion design generally is not protectable
under copyright law, design patent, trademark or trade
dress law.
A second essay, “Ready to Share: Creativity in Fashion &
Digital Culture,” by David Bollier and Laurie Racine, senior
fellows at the Norman Lear Center, builds on the first piece
by looking at the social and intergenerational dynamics of
creativity in fashion, and how shared traditions and designs
play an indispensable role in driving new creativity.
1. Norman Lear and
Michael Patrick King
discuss the impact of
intellectual property
restrictions on specific
creative decisions in
their TV shows.
2. FIDM’s Barbara
Bundy highlights
the energy of the
conference.
Between Creativity and Control,” Aram Sinnreich and
Marissa Gluck, two former research analysts for Jupiter
Research, explore the fascinating parallels and differences
between creativity in music and fashion. The culture of
fashion is far more accepting of appropriation and imitation
than the music industry, which relies upon strict copyright
protection and fierce litigation to prevent the smallest forms
of unauthorized copying.
Since we believe the topic of creativity and ownership in
the fashion industry deserves greater scrutiny, this volume
guest, David Wolfe, Creative Director of the Doneger Group,
we interweave an on-the-ground look at fashion with the
“Ready to Share” conference themes.
David Wolfe, one of the industry’s foremost trend forecasters,
exposed fashion as a kind of “fragile ecosystem” of
styles and motifs, tracing some of the significant historical
shifts in fashion design and markets over the past 75 years.
Tom Ford’s illuminating conversation with New York Times
reporter Guy Trebay centered on whether fashion is deriva-
tion, are certainly important in spurring creativity. But many
The authors wonder why the “borrowing” that is considered
includes an annotated bibliography prepared by Norman
tive at its core or an original art form. Using examples from
social, technological and historical elements also affect how
standard practice in fashion should be denounced as “theft”
Lear Center researcher Patrick Reed. The wealth of articles
various designers, Ford and Trebay talked about the neces-
creativity unfolds and circulates. One of the most important
when it occurs in music or film. How is it that sampling the
and books listed in this far-ranging bibliography features
sity of personal interpretations, and brand identity and its
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