Dr. Marcketti good afternoon. Im very happy to see you all here today. Thank you for coming over to the Memorial Union to see this class. Today i am going to present a paper called knock it off a history of design piracy in the fashion industry. I wanted acknowledge my coauthor dr. Jane parsons from the university of missouri. This work is currently under contract with Texas Tech University press. We will start with some questions to try to think about do we know what design piracy is . All right, with a showing of hands, how many of you have seen design piracy in magazines, in television, or perhaps even on the internet . Wow. A good number of you. Here is my example with marie claire magazine, one with rachel ray and the higherpriced and the lowerpriced version right next to it. Heres another question for you. Have you ever experienced design piracy while shopping online or at a brickandmortar store . Raise your hand. Ok, we have even more people. Recently i was looking at amazon. Com. I was wanting to jump on the bandwagon for a jean jacket and some jersey in the sleeve and the hoodie. I found this example on the left. Free free people for about 148. A couple pages down, here was an example, jessica simpson, 80. Similar. Very similar. Now that we have established pretty much everyone in the room has experienced this in some way in their life, but do we know exactly what it is . So, what is design piracy . Is design piracy always the low copying the high . Raise your hand if you think that. Is it always the low copying the high . No. No. Right . This example might have clued you in here. We see the galliano example from 1998 and if we look at this from 1928, it looks very similar, does it not . Is design piracy the same thing as counterfeiting . Raise your hand if you think yes, design piracy is the same exact thing as counterfeiting . All right, a couple of you, not really sure, not really sure. This is a bit more difficult. However, the correct answer is design piracy is very different from counterfeiting. The example we see here is true religion, and we see the fake example on the left and the real example on the right. What makes this a counterfeit and not a pirated design . There is one thing that is really key here. One element that is really key. What is that . The label. Right . The label. In counterfeiting, objects or are fraudulently branded as someone elses. The fake is trying to be passed off or pawned off as the real thing. Design piracy, however, is the unauthorized copying or knocking off of another manufacturers or designers ideas. My final question my final question. Is this a new 21st century phenomenon . Man, i picked some good examples. Not new. Right . Of course not. This here is pete mondrians very famous series of paintings from the 1920s. Where he used this color blocking type of aesthetic. And here is the Yves Saint Laurent dress from 1965. Really a genius. It is so simple. He has taken different colors and you do not even see the seam lines. This is 2006, 2007, forever 21. Designer, of course, unknown. Costs less than Yves Saint Laurent. The color block nike sneakers from 2010. They continue to release this color block aesthetic. We see here from 1960 through 2010, a pretty old phenomenon. But if you know your costume history, as i know you all do, we can look all the way back to the late middle ages or the italian renaissance and see this whole notion of color blocking putting multiple colors into one garment, was very much alive and well. The purpose we have identified right . What is it . What is it not . The purpose of todays lesson is to determine, how does fashion fall between the seams of design protection . To explore the concepts of fashion creation in the early 20th century, and to learn from a case study in the 1930s. Before we get into that, you say intellectual Property Protection and youre probably thinking what is that . So, what we are going to do is touch a bit on what is actually intellectual property, or ip protection. You have probably all seen this, right . Have you all seen this . Where do you usually see this . Movies. Youre watching a movie. Before you get to the good stuff, this sign comes up, and when we think about intellectual property, movies pharmaceuticals, those are the products that typically come to mind. But one only needs to think about, if it is anything your mind creates, right, that can be protected by intellectual Property Protection, it is important because a lot of studies have said intellectual Property Protection is correlated with national competitiveness, and those nations with stricter ip protection often rank in the top in the world in Global Growth and economic competitiveness. Now were just going to look at a couple of examples of ip protection. To get at the heart of what is it about fashion that makes it pun intended fall between the seams of design protection . Copyright. Copyright is the first element of ip protection, however it generally does not apply to apparel. If items of clothing are considered useful articles. Designers have tried to argue that their work is sculptural and a work of art, but it has been consistently said by the courts that it is to be functional. It is to provide modesty and protect us from the elements, therefore it does not apply for copyright protection. If you are a quilter, you may see sometimes copyright received. That is the pattern of the quilt. Patterns for tapestries, also, are protected, as are some jewelry designs. Clothing, typically, is not. The trademark. What you think of immediately . Immediately. Trademark, these symbols to identify the origins or the source of products. As soon as we see the interlocking cs, we know it has to be chanel. We have established something, right . Pirates are not trying to steal the trademark. They are not trying to pawn themselves off the chanel or nike. They are trying to be similar to chanel. But they are never trying to confuse a consumer into thinking it is an actual chanel. This works great for counterfeit products. Not so much pirated. Third one is kind of unusual. Trade dress. Trade dress refers to the unique design appearance or packaging of a product. This trade dress, it means the package equals the product in the consumers mind. So, barbie is my best example. As soon as you see the pink letters, the pink box, if it is malibu barbie, if it is ken, if it skipper, no matter what specific barbie it is, you know its mattel brand barbie products. Will this work for apparel . Does apparel have kind of a product that so consistent that as soon as you see something that yes, that so and so . Not really right . Thats the whole version of fashion, its always changing. Its always different. The last category is kind of different. It is Design Patents, and these will provide a shortterm protection for novel or nonobvious features of an invention. A lot of shoe designers use Design Patents and even fashion designers have used Design Patents. But there are some problems. They can be very costly. They can take a long time to secure. Many months. By the time you receive a design patent, someone else in the market has already scooped you. They have already introduced a similar style. Furthermore, Design Patents are brought before judges. This is a case where they were saying it was a design patent in dispute. Oftentimes the judges will say the design patent was not valid in the first place. There was nothing inventive enough or novel enough for it to even have been patented. And this leads us to think about, right, what is it about fashion . Can it be original . Can it be something new . The whole notion of trying to determine what is original, what is an adaptation, what is a copy is really the crux of the whole design piracy issue. This advertisement from 1919 was created by Maurice Rentner in we hear his name later, so talk that away. In this advertisement, he is saying that his designs are indistinctly original adaptations. What . What does that even mean . Maybe he is saying that they are original or adapted from or inspired by these different fabrics on notions, but how would you determine if this is original or an adaptation or somewhere in between . Furthermore many designers question and contemplate whether any design is Truly Original since preexisting ideas styles, trends are the basis truly, for all garments. When we think about it, the to create styles, designers will follow is the zeitgeist the spirit of the time, in creating their goods. They look at history. They look at high culture. They look at politics. They look at society. They are influenced by these similar ideas. It is no wonder that similar products are created. This example stems from 1922. King tuts tomb was discovered. And all of a sudden everyone from Hair Products to make up to clothing designers are inspired by ancient egypt. You see, everyone looks pretty similar, they are all inspired by ancient egypt. So, i want you to think about, just for a second here, what is it about fashion then that allows it to fall between the seams of design protection . Any takers on this one . What is it about fashion that makes it so difficult to protect . Lee, what do you think . Lee i think [indiscernible] dr. Marcketti all right, lee had a great point. The speed of fashion makes it difficult to protect. Thank you, lee. The speed of fashion. How many pairs of denim jeans do you guys have in your closet . How many . One . Five . Six . Eight. 10. Do we have to go higher . 20 . You think about this. Some of these jeans you wear for school, for class. Some you wear for date night. Some you have reserved for fancy occasions. Some you have reserved for doing housework or garden work. They are all jeans, but they are so differentiated and there is always a new pair you might want to buy, right . Some other things i thought about. Fashion is both decorative and functional. It does not fit into the current ip protection options. We have to think about the minute incremental changes. The flare versus the boot. Minute changes. A short sleeve versus a cap sleeve. Minute changes. And the whole notion of who gets to decide what is original, what is an adaptation, and what is a copy . And furthermore for all of this if you own a copy, if you own a trademark, you have to vigilantly sue or threaten to sue anyone who trespasses or violates your mark. So, there is an element you have to be out there aggressively protecting your product. So, this is good. Lets think about the next thing. We kind of have established what design piracy is and what it is not. The next series of slides, what were going to do is explore explore the concept of fashion creation in the early 20th century, which will help to institutionalize piracy in the u. S. Ready to wear apparel industry. Prior to the 1860s, mid 19th century, prior to that time for either geographical economic reasons, women either made their clothing or had a seamstress make their clothing. Into the earliest 20th century, we see a complex series of social cultural, and technological changes that will set the stage for the rapid growth of the ready to wear apparel industry. This is actually of an Iowa State University botany class from 1890. We see more women than ever before gain access and opportunity to go to college. And women are increasingly playing sports. This is one of my favorite pictures. On riverside drive, new york city. It does not look like this today. We see women participating in sports in School Settings and outside, women are working more than ever before. You think about it. Long working hours, increased opportunities for your leisure time, riding in an automobile, going to the movies, right . Playing sports . You have less time to sew. In addition, if you think about it, do women really always have the skills to create a well fitted, acceptably fashionable garment . No. No. Enter the department store. The stores become the center for display and entertainment. William leach, a historian talks about these palaces of consumption, allowing women to see and be seen in fashionable clothing. Thus changing shopping rituals forever. Advertisements in retail shop displays. See this window . This does not happen too much today, does it . People gawking in the window to see what the new products are going to be. It will make highfashion more visible. Women will be more influenced, to desire new clothing. And owning new clothing. By the beginning of the 20th century, readytowear clothing offered in a variety of styles, quantity, and prices are available in almost all marketplaces. This is a shirtwaist, we see here, from the haberdasher in 1896 and here in Good Housekeeping from 1909. The shirtwaist was one style that a 1902 observers said was the one thing every woman wears from the fat cook in the kitchen to the woman who dresses upon incomes of millions. This unpolitically correct statement, of course, merely highlights how universal the shirtwaist was. Everyone was wearing it. As clothing became available in these readytowear establishments, they needed to be pretty simple, right . For you to just go in, look at the garment, take it home, and not have to do too much stitching or changing on it. The retail manufacturers also thought, we want people to keep coming back. How to they get people to keep coming back . What do they do . What do they do today to keep you coming . Make something new. Exactly right. So what they did was, they kept making new things. We see this advertisement. We see a page of shirtwaists. They are all shirtwaists, but they are differentiated slightly, right . Maybe there are pleats going this way or vertically or there are cuffs. All shirtwaists. All new. All touted as new by the apparel industry. But we see happen is design piracy will take old and never let go. In new york city between 1900 and 1917, we see the number of establishments grow 350 . This rapid growth was encouraged by the need to constantly produce new styles for this actively different and diverse american consumer. The legion of u. S. Designers though, are going to remain anonymous. You see here, john wanamaker. That is the store label. We do not see a designers name. Here we have Kerry Collins the names are completely buried in the text. You cannot really see them. And furthermore, they were for the custom, higherend apparel not just the regular masses garments. Progressive era, reformer ida tarbell has a great quote. From top to bottom we are copying. The french or viennese model started on upper fifth avenue, spreads to 23rd street from 23rd street to 14th street to grand canal. Each move sees it reproduced in materials a little less elegant and durable, its colors a trifle vulgarized, its ornaments cheapened, its places poorer. Laces poorer. A travesty, and yet, a recognizable travesty. Design piracy will truly help fuel the apparel industry as style change becomes the force of the growth of the industry. Styles will be copied so quickly that any popular style will be virtually immediately available at lower in lower price points. Lower and lower price points. As the design was copied at lower price points, the market will become flooded with cheap imitations of goods. Copies of copies of copies of copies, as ida tarbell is telling us here. In this interesting example, we see a dress and its exact copy offered in a court case, right trying to say that the manufacturer or the designer stole the idea. What we see to kind of keep up with this growth in the apparel industry is that rather than go to france right, rather than go to france, pay the customs duties, pay the import taxes what designers and manufacturers are going to do is copy one another. Copy fellow americans. It is far easier to do that than to go to the library to do research, to go to school get a degree in fashion design. We are just going to copy. Furthermore, you will save cost on product failure or even hiring designers. Manufacturers who copy one anothers in a number of ways. You think about it, in the early 21st century apparel design, so you have manufacturers creating goods for multiple companies. One company will go in to check on their goods, and they will see someone elses product. They will say that is a goodlooking sweater or that is a good looking, you know shirtwaist. And they will think about, ok, lets steal that idea and run with it. We also see people go to shows and sketch. The whole notion of scouts with camera eyes. They will go to the show under the auspices of being a buyer for their department store, but then they will sketch it out and bring it to have it produced. And we also think about people stealing, bribing, or buying goods, taking them to be produced by their manufacturer and if you can believe this, actually return them to get their original initial investment. So, we see here that piracy is set up in the industry. What happens though, in the 1930s in the 1930s, of course, one of the biggest events we think about is the great depression. We see this in harpers bazaar. 1931, quantity and quality. Then in womenswear daily, it says we are shouting value, and indeed, quantity at reasonable prices will be very important to the 1930s consumer. The depression will see unemployment is high as 25 . Clothing manufacturers will see a critical change in the Shopping Habits of women. So, you will start comparative shopping, right . You will evaluate across Different Stores which product you want at what price. Although the number of dresses produced remains about the same, the cost and the quality of the stresses went down dramatically. So, same number of dresses, but the cost and the quality, way down. We also see, according to the census of manufacturers, the wholesale value per dress will decrease about 50 from 1927 to 1937. Pretty much across the board. The higherend manufacturers are going out of business and the lower ones are continuing to drive. Some people think that continuing to thrive. Some people think that during the depression people stopped shopping, but thats not exactly what happened. People started thinking about the cost of the product and what they could afford. Maybe you are typically a 17 consumer. Your typical dresses 17. During the depression you start looking for an 11 dress. The 11 consumer says, this makes my budget a little tight. I will start looking at the eight dollar dress, and so forth. But everyone can be somewhat fashionable. So basically, what happens, all of these impacts, all of these factors will cause an incredibly rich demand for inexpensive dresses. Piracy will flourish. This is one of my favorite examples from life magazine. The duchess of windsor will wear a 250 dress that was illustrated in the womens wear daily. You see here my numbers. On june 13, they will feature this european sensation for only 25. In early july, lord and taylor will feature a similar dress at about 16. 95. One week later, clients will offer it for 8. 97. The sixweek defense of the dress wouldve felt like forever today. Visually, you can see this in the illustration. Remember what ida tarbell was talking about . You can see how drastically the neighborhoods change, too, from the higher priced original to the lowerpriced style on the right. Fashion writer Elizabeth Hawes will talk about fashion and the fashion industry in her book fashion is finished. This is her quote that talks about the yearning for new items. She says, it is the proud boast of some wholesalers that they make up a whole line with only three dress patterns. The newness so loudly called for is new trimming, new callers collars new cuffs, new buttons, new flowers, and all of this not too new please. Think about how similarly we dress today. Thats the very nation nature of fashion. In order for a fashion to be in fashion you have to have a Critical Mass of people actually adopt it. But we are never satisfied. As as soon as we have one style, we start thinking, ooh, how can it be a little different so we can keep being at the forefront of style and fashion . We mentioned jeans. Is there anything else we wear today that has this differentiation by just little , little bits . [indiscernible] dr. Marcketti undergarments, a great example. Same basic thing, but you continue to buy based on different styles. A wonderful example. Anything else . Boots. Dr. Marcketti boots. What is an example of that . You have your basic riding boots, but then you have ugg boots, ankle boots, and studded boots and shooties dr. Marcketti im not even sure what shooties are. They are like boots, but they are open toed in the front. Dr. Marcketti boots are a great example. Has anyone been shopping for high boots lately . You go into the store theres an Infinite Kind of variety of boots you could buy. Anybody else think of an idea . Ok, jeans. Give us an example . [indiscernible] dr. Marcketti thats a great example. We think of the washes of jeans. You have acid wash for an old person like me. And you have dark denim and black denim, and color denim and all of these little fits and things that differentiate your one basic pair of jeans. We see this even today, 1930 82 today8 two today how similar and how true this is. So in this environment, we see the most successful attempt to end piracy occur. In 1932, a group of just 12 manufacturers will come together, located in the new york city area, led by Maurice Rentner, to start thinking about how to increase style consciousness among women. Called the fashion originators guild of america, it had the stated aim of protecting original fashion. To facilitate this, what they did was they established a design Registration Bureau to register designs by members. Registration was simple. All you had to do was submit a slip of paper, the sketch of your garment. You needed to give a very brief description stating why it was unique, why it was original, and the guild would give it a serial number, stamp it with their logo, and dated to establish date it to establish priority. Sketches were not cross referenced or checked to ensure that they were original. And this, of course, is herbert sondheim, noted manufacturer and a member of the foga board of directors. Once registered, the designer or manufacturer would receive one of these labels. Either a registered original design or registered with foga. The labels cost . 50 each, and if you can believe this, the foga said monthly they sold between 500,000 to over one million labels. Think about that. Thats a huge number. In a later court hearing, a judge will say these labels will come to have definite significance as indicating that the dresses were made by by original designs by skilled workers. These were the divisions covering ladies, junior miss sportswear, and also textile designers. The foga will advertise to such a degree that you could hardly turn a page of womens wear daily without seeing a promotional message or some kind of advertisement the guild promoted. In fact in march 1933, they had a 20 page issue of womens wear daily. The guild was everywhere. They started high. They started about 22. 50. What they do then its kind of interesting. What they do then, they start expanding their guardianship over piracy to include the moderate price lines. So, wholesaling, 11 to about 16. Five months later, they will extend protection to this 6. 75 to 8. 75 level. A month after that they extend to the four dollar mark. 4. 75 mark. The guild will argue because piracy occurs copies of copies of copies throughout the industry, every branch needs protection. They do this. They offer protection through various means. They can ask what is called declarations of cooperation. Basically agreements between a manufacturer and a designer and a retailer that the retailer is not going to sell copied merchandise, and if they get copied merchandise, they will return it to the manufacturer. The guild will employ secret or investigative shoppers that will go in search for copies being sold in stores. If a copy is found or if they retailer violates one of the other trade practices the guild has established, the guild red cards them. Red carding is similar to what you might know as blacklisting. They are put on a list. That means they are not able to do business with other members of the foga. Great plan, right . Do you think it is a good plan . Is it going to work . Who thinks is going to work . Raise your hand. Ok, i guess i set it up that it was shortlived and ended. But you can imagine it was a good idea. It was a really good idea. And people really buy into it. This one is a little bit hard to say, but the federal trade commission will say by 1936 the foga controls about 40 of all goods at the 6. 75 to 10. 75 level and over 60 of those above the 10. 75 level. They exert a huge amount of control over the industry. They have members everywhere across the united states. But some people think that the entire purpose of the lower price firms is to make salable copies of higherpriced goods. Lowerpriced manufacturers say enough. They decide to oppose the style Registration System of the guild and basically says it is monopolistic and illegal. This popular price group they are a group of wholesalers manufacturers, like this, the 4. 75 wholesale level. They decide they will have their own declaration policy against the foga and they will not participate in this program anymore. The guilds in extended effort to put teeth in the campaign against piracy will cause watchdogs and the federal government to take notice. The foga was continually brought to court. Some they won. Some legal cases they did when. In 1936, the federal trade commission will begin hearings on foga practices. In 1940, that court will rule that while the guild policies of suppressing piracy are ok and justifiable, the means of accomplishing it are illegal. On march 19, 1941, the foga petitions to give the ruling overturned, and justice hugo black will deliver an opinion saying that the potential power to cause monopoly and coercion will bring it in violation of clayton, sherman, federal trade commission acts, and with it the most successful attempt to end piracy ended. So, where does this leave us . Right . Where does this leave us . There continue to be bills submitted for design piracy protection, but i think you can probably see here why they do not work. Its very complex and not easily resolved, and it continues. This is an example from people magazine. On the right, Kate Middleton in her beautiful Alexander Mcqueen wedding dress. 12 hours 12 hours later, abs schwartz had this example ready for sale. This is far less than the six week descent of the wally dress. We see this constantly with the internet and global communications. The spread of ideas is instantaneous. Furthermore the acceptance by consumers to hunt for the latest style at the cheapest price becomes further cemented in this industry. I leave you with this great what i think is great advertisement from 1923. I think we can probably think about this in relationship to today. This comedy says this company says you may buy an original here, you may buy a copy here, you may buy an adaptation here, but never a forgery of fashion. This company, oppenheimer collins, says you may buy an original here. You may buy a copy here. You may buy an adaptation here. But never a forgery of fashion. All right, guys. Thank you so much. Listen next time you meet on friday, it will be back over in morrill hall and we will be doing an artifact analysis of garments from the 20th century to try to identify which garment fits into which decade. So, thats friday. Hope to see you then. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] caption content and accuracy. You are watching American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at cspan history. On American History tv, Cornell University history professor Fred Logevall talks about how policymakers use and misuse the past. He cites a number of analogies and how they have been used by contemporary policymakers including neville chamberlains preworld war ii appeasement policies and the vietnam war. Southern Methodist University hosted this event. It is about 80 minutes. Host my main purpose is to introduce you to professor Fred Logevall, a professor of history at Cornell University and the vice provost for international affairs. He is those things but much more. Those further attributes are the reasons why youre h