It is not easy to stand anything that is common. You may call it snobbishness or fashion sense, but anything that is seen hitting other peoples wardrobes, exits ours. This applies to everything in life from watches to shirts to ties to shoes. Cheap copies and common imitations can make anyone extra sweaty. The only way out for this extra sensitive gene is to turn to exclusive designer collections.
Designer collection guarantees that it is uncommon, creative, and unique. It has an inherent distinctiveness which no ordinary product can beat. However, it stands as a challenge for new so called designers where to draw the line between knocking off and getting inspired by. Rolex was established in 1905, it lived the test of time, it was modified developed over years and proved itself as the fashion asset. Gucci was founded in 1921. Dior launched his first collection in 1947. He was the last great dictator of style in the 1950s. Saint Laurent introduced the trapeze dress in his first collection for Dior in 1958. Everyone and everything that follows is a replication and continuation of the works of these great design gurus.
Knocking-off is rampant in the fashion industry. Designers who fume over being copied are not above doing it themselves. Considering the speed with which designs can be recreated, it is not even always clear which designer created the original and which designer merely copied it. When a lower-priced designer knocks off a higher-priced designer’s clothing, the copy may be a huge success because it offers more value for the price. But very often it is the higher-priced designers who are copying each other. For example, in 1994, Yves Saint Laurent was awarded $383,000 by a French court that agreed that Polo/Ralph Lauren had copied Saint Laurent’s distinctive tuxedo dress. But in 1985, Saint Laurent was fined $11,000 for copying a toreador jacket from designer Jacques Esterel.
It is now common for imitators to photograph the clothes in a designer’s runway show, send the photo to a factory to be copied, and have a sample ready within a couple of days. Since fashion collections are displayed in runway shows approximately four to five months before they are available to the public, this leaves the fashion copycats plenty of time to get the copies to stores at the same time, if not earlier, than the originals. Designers claim that design piracy affects their exclusivity, lowers their sales volume, and ultimately removes incentives for creativity.
The Louis Vuitton and Chanel bags sold on roadsides are blatant counterfeit pieces and are in fact illegal. Handbag designer Giuliana who has been designing in Venice since 1945 has been knocked off over and over again.
“When I was only doing bags, I found it particularly important to be always very well dressed, and so I became a client of Chanel. Once in a fitting she saw me crying because someone had copied a bag which I had done exclusively for Neiman Marcus. ‘You must not cry now,’ Coco said. ‘You cry the day they don’t copy you.’ Hence, exclusive designer collection has answers to all problems. You cry if you have it you sob if you don’t!