Why I Like Knock-offs

From "Before Models Can Turn Around, Knockoffs Fly", NYTimes.com:

A debate is raging in the American fashion industry over such designs. Copying, which has always existed in fashion, has become so pervasive in the Internet era it is now the No. 1 priority of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which is lobbying Congress to extend copyright protection to clothing. Nine senators introduced a bill last month to support the designers. An expert working with the designers’ trade group estimates that knockoffs represent a minimum of 5 percent of the $181 billion American apparel market.

Outlawing them is certainly an uphill battle, since many shoppers see nothing wrong with knockoffs, especially as prices for designer goods skyrocket. Critics of the designers’ group even argue that copies are good for fashion because they encourage designers to continuously invent new wares to stay ahead.

Designers say that is pre-Internet thinking.

I read this article with great interest, as it kicked up many conflicting feelings I have about the primacy of design as it relates to intellectual property and cultural currency. As a designer, I come up with stuff that is supposed to be different and innovative and identify with the machine that creates value and of course don't mind credit and compensation when it is legitimately earned. However, in my studies in intellectual property law, I find the movement to lobby Congress to thwart copycats really stupid. In the hierarchy of intellectual property law, utility patents (covered how something functions) reign supreme in IP protection, with process patents, design patents and finally copyrights down the chain in importance and ability to successfully protect in the marketplace and current legal system.

The fashion industry has always had to deal with knock-offs from Asia, and frankly, I think that's good for innovation in general. But to attempt to copyright the way something looks as a way to legally inhibit knockoffs I think is a little like a child crying for mommy to go beat up a bully for him. Knock-off companies are not bullies, especially if the competitive arena is about marketshare (ie, people buy stuff, any stuff, all stuff). At worst, knock-off companies are opportunists, and you could also argue they're unimaginative. But the manufacturing and production technology is so good these days, that it's downright easy to copy and produce commodified goods (such as clothes).

There is also something that the "heyday of design" of the last decade or so has done is to create a mainstream awareness of well-designed products, and frankly, with so much uniformity in (good) quality, then the only differentiators between commodities are BRAND, and COST. Some people care a lot about BRAND, but I think that is a privileged class thing. I think most people care more about QUALITY and COST. Therefore it makes complete sense that if I can acquire something that is 80% the quality of the real mccoy for a fraction of the cost, why would I spend the extra hard-earned money touting the BRAND? (I don't have friends that are impressed by the brands I wear, so who you are and who you hang out with largely determines the impressed-by-brand phenomenon.)

Gone are the days of super-crap knock-off Rolexes in Chinatown bins. The Internet and Western Union allow you to access direct from the manufacturer knock-off goods at a fraction of the real cost. I have a Bell & Ross replica (made in China) that I paid $200 for. I real one costs $7000 or more. I love the pseudo-airplane-cockpit design. And although it is not perfect (a screw broke loose), I love wearing it. And no one I know even cares about this rarified brand, so I am certainly not doing it to impress anyone. I just think it's really cool looking.

Bell & Ross BR-01: Which is the knock-off? 

Designers need to stop being crybabies about copyright protection and really think a lot harder about the UTILITY of the works they produce. Invent new fabrics. Invent new methods of distribution. Invent new categories of clothing that transcend the superficiality of paying obscene amounts of money to look "fahbulous". Invest in learning about the way intellectual property law really works, design's role in the class-stratification of the world, and how to truly think out-of-the-box in their supposed domains of expertise. Many famed fashion designers "get it" by creating multi-segmented lines based on tiered-pricepoints. That's a start. But when they go crying to mommy (the government) for protection, I think they really haven't tried hard enough to compete on the real Darwinian turf of STRUCTURAL INNOVATION, not just styling.

In the case of fashion, is it said that clothing is a non-appreciating asset class, meaning that it does not appreciate in value over time (in fact fashion artifacts arguably depreciate in value on a predictable timetable which is seasonal and planned) and there is certainly no secondary market for resale. Why invest in a non-appreciating asset class? Why pay more for brand prestige when it is ethereal, non-quantifiable, and desire is completely manufactured?