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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Testimony of David Wolfe Creative Director, The Doneger Group Before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property Legislative Hearing On H.R. 5055: “To amend title 17, United States Code, to provide protection for fashion design.” July 27, 2006 Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Berman, members of the subcommittee, my name is David Wolfe. I am Creative Director for Doneger Creative Services, the Doneger Group’s trend and color forecasting and analysis department. In my role as Creative Director, I analyze men’s, women’s and youth apparel and accessories markets as well as big-picture developments in style, culture and society. I want to thank the subcommittee for inviting me to testify on the proposed copyright for fashion design. * Over the past century, the fashion industry in America has thrived because of, and not in spite of, a lack of copyright protection for fashion designs. The fashion industry is a well balanced system which succeeds by smoothly, quickly and profitably integrating a complicated blend of original ideas, individual creativity and copying. Fashion designers draw on a wide array of influences from society, history and one another, making it virtually impossible to determine the originality of a given design. Copyright for fashion design is antithetical to this process. For these reasons, H.R. 5055, or any other legislation that provides copyright protection to fashion design, could not be enforced fairly, would create litigation that would slow the pace of the industry and would increase costs for the industry, retailers and consumers. Attached to my testimony is a copy of the book, Ready to Share: Fashion & the Ownership of Creativity, which contains essays examining the relationship between creativity and intellectual property law in fashion. The book is a product of a conference sponsored by the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication and attended by fashion designers, fashion analysts, journalists, and academics. The Lack of Originality in Fashion Makes Copyright Protection a Poor Fit Copyright law in this country is premised on protecting originality, but finding and defining originality in fashion is an extremely difficult if not impossible task. Fashion trends today follow our shifting society; they are not invented on a runway. The runway reflects what is happening in our world. Economics, politics, weather, media, celebrities, demographics, sex and science all influence trends. All designers feed off of this same information and inspiration, and hopefully interpret it in their own unique way. * I would like thank Public Knowledge intern Sarah Zenewicz for helping me with this testimony. 1
For example, movies are highly influential to the fashion industry. Faye Dunaway’s costumes in Bonnie and Clyde influenced American women to wear longer “midi” skirts after the miniskirt trends of the 1960’s. Kimono-inspired clothing began appearing on runways after the release of Memoirs of a Geisha. The New York Times recently published a story discussing the influence the television series Miami Vice had on fashion: “The extent to which the show played a part in the sartorial recasting of the American man is difficult to overestimate.” Originality in fashion design is questionable when designers are explicitly influenced by so many sources. There was little originality in the “midi” skirts that became popular in the 1970’s because those designers were inspired by the costumes in Bonnie and Clyde, which were in turn inspired by the fashion of the 1920’s. If a designer today can be influenced by Miami Vice and produce a pastel suit reminiscent of Don Johnson’s 1980’s attire, much like kimonoinspired fashion became ubiquitous on the runways after Memoirs of a Geisha, then it should be readily apparent that assigning originality in fashion is a great challenge. Because it is so difficult to determine what is “original” about a particular fashion design, it would be equally difficult to enforce a copyright fairly. For example, bestowing copyright to a designer for the “little black dress,” ubiquitous in the wardrobe of every woman who attends cocktail parties or concerts, would be unfair because there is no originality in a design for the little black dress. Designer Coco Chanel is credited with introducing the dress in 1926 as a symbol of urban sophistication, and every designer for the past eighty years has copied, reinterpreted, and reintroduced the dress. The Fashion Industry Has Thrived and Continues to Thrive in the Absence of Copyright Fashion has always operated without copyright protection in the United States. The absence of copyright in fashion frees designers to incorporate popular and reemerging styles into their own lines without restricting themselves for fear of infringement, thus facilitating the growth of new trends. The fashion industry benefits from the constant creation of new trends because new trends are what induce consumers to continually buy. The result is an industry that in 2005 had revenues of $19.5 billion. Fashion designers influence each other and appropriate each others’ designs into their own lines. Chanel created her influential Chanel Jacket that fashion designers at all levels have copied and redesigned from its release in 1916 until today. Chanel’s influence for the jacket came from men’s jacket designs of the time. The influence of Chanel’s jacket can be seen in designs for the past 90 years from Karl Lagerfeld, Adolfo, St. John, BCBG and H&M. Designs are copied, and they morph and change over time, and so-called “original” ideas often originate in the designs of others. Designs and ideas that become popular in fashion do not always come from the design studios of haute couture (high fashion for a wealthy clientele), but trends can also work from the bottom up. Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg once said, “Everything in fashion begins in the street.” While this is something of an overstatement, it does illustrate the point that fashion 2
Page 1: Testimony of David Wolfe, Creative
Page 5 and 6: industry. By the time a design is d
Page 7 and 8: EADYTOSHAREREAD TOSHAREREADYTOS ARE
Page 9 and 10: s e c t i o n o f b o o k , t i t l
Page 11 and 12: P a r t i c i p a t i n g O r g a n
Page 13 and 14: Introduction How can an industry bu
Page 17 and 18: E s s a y s : B e t w e e n t h e S
Page 23 and 24: E s s a y s : Ready t o S h a r e t
Page 25 and 26: E s s a y s : Ready t o S h a r e p
Page 29 and 30: E s s a y s : Ready t o S h a r e a
Page 31 and 32: E s s a y s : M u s i c & F a s h i
Page 41 and 42: author biographies endnotes page 66
Page 43 and 44: page 70 | Ready to Share: Fashion &
Page 45 and 46: E v e n t : O v e r v i e w partici
Page 47 and 48: E v e n t : P a r t i c i p a n t B
Page 49 and 50: E v e n t : P a r t i c i p a n t B
Page 51 and 52: O N R esources
Page 53 and 54:
Re s o u r c e s : A n n o t a t e
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Re s o u r c e s : I n d e x resour
Page 61 and 62:
Re s o u r c e s : I n d e x page 1
show all

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?