Fashion law

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Fashion law deals with legal issues that impact the fashion industry. [1] Fundamental issues in fashion law include intellectual property, business, and finance, with subcategories ranging from employment and labor law to real estate, international trade, and government regulation. Fashion law also includes related areas such as textile production, modelling, media, the cosmetics and perfume industries, [2] [3] questions of safety and sustainability, dress codes and religious apparel, consumer culture, privacy and wearable tech, and civil rights. Clothing laws varies by country.

Contents

History

Fashion has long been subject to legal regulation throughout history, from sumptuary laws that limit who can wear certain garments to trade restrictions and varying degrees of intellectual property protection. [4] [5] However, fashion law was not conceived as a distinct legal field until the mid- to late-2000s.

In May 2004, a group of French lawyers led by Annabelle Gauberti published a supplement entitled "Droit du luxe" (which translates into either "law of luxury goods" or "luxury law") in the prestigious French legal magazine Revue Lamy Droit des Affaires. This supplement explored specific legal and tax issues at stake in the fashion and luxury goods sectors and was one of the earliest analyses of the interactions between the legal field and the fashion and luxury goods industries.

Professor Susan Scafidi offered the first course in Fashion Law at Fordham Law School in 2006, thus creating a new field of legal study. [6] At the same time, Fashion Law courses for designers were developed by Guillermo Jimenez at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Deborah McNamara at Parsons School of Design. [7] In 2008, Scafidi wrote that fashion law was only then starting to be recognized as a distinct area of law. [8]

In 2010, the world's first academic centre dedicated to fashion law, the Fashion Law Institute, launched with the support of Diane von Furstenberg and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Since then a number of other institutions around the world have offered courses or programs in the area of fashion law. These include the University of Milan, [9] the University of Insubria, [10] the Instituto Brasileiro de Negócios e Direito da Moda, [11] University at Buffalo Law School, [12] Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, [13] New York Law School, [14] New York University, [15] the Fashion Law Project at Loyola Law School, [16] [17] the Moda Hukuku Enstitusu in Turkey, [18] the annual Fashion Law Week at Howard University, [19] and McGill University Faculty of Law. [20]

Fashion law has also developed into an established field of practice and study. [21] In 2010, designer-turned-lawyer Brittany Rawlings [22] led the first Fashion Law practice group [23] [24] dedicated entirely to issues that arise throughout the life of a fashion business. [25] The New York City Bar Association has had a dedicated Fashion Law Committee since January 2011, [26] and the New York County Lawyer's Association has had a Fashion Law Subcommittee since September 2011. [27]

While double-digit turnover growth is being generated by many companies involved in the fashion and luxury goods sectors, an increasing number of lawsuits are filed in this industry, and more legal practitioners are focusing their practice on this particular industry and sector. The international association of lawyers for the creative industries (ialci) was founded in 2013 during Paris Fashion Week. [28] The goal of the association is to provide relevant, useful business and legal knowledge and solutions regarding the creative industries, including fashion and luxury goods. [28]

Segments of Fashion Law

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property protection has been a substantial legal concern in fashion since the emergence of fashion brands in the 19th century. [29] It has been the subject of congressional debate, [30] multiple academic articles, [31] [32] and the first fashion law blog, [33] [34] as well as a major exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum in New York. [35] Key issues include:

A prominent related issue has been cultural appropriation, such as the use of Native American or religious designs by commercial fashion brands. [42] [43] [44]

Financing and Corporate Structures

Fashion law encompasses the broad spectrum of issues pertinent to starting and funding a fashion business, such as:

Manufacturing

Legal issues in the production of clothing and accessories include:

Marketing

Legal issues addressed in connection with marketing include:

Retail

Legal issues connected with the retail environment include:

Ethics, Sustainability, and Economic Development

Concerns pertaining to fashion ethics, sustainability and economic development have had a substantial impact on the industry, affecting both the legal framework and self-regulation initiatives. Important issues have included:

International Trade

In addition to the international implications of issues noted above, fashion law also addresses other matters connected to international business transactions, including:

Modelling Law

The legal status of models has become a prominent issue in fashion law, as exemplified by:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intellectual property</span> Ownership of creative expressions and processes

Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. The modern concept of intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term "intellectual property" began to be used in the 19th century, though it was not until the late 20th century that intellectual property became commonplace in most of the world's legal systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterfeit</span> Making a copy or imitation which is represented as the original

To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value than the real product. Counterfeit products are fakes or unauthorized replicas of the real product. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product. The word counterfeit frequently describes both the forgeries of currency and documents as well as the imitations of items such as clothing, handbags, shoes, pharmaceuticals, automobile parts, unapproved aircraft parts, watches, electronics and electronic parts, software, works of art, toys, and movies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prada</span> Italian luxury fashion house

Prada S.p.A. is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1913 in Milan by Mario Prada. It specializes in leather handbags, travel accessories, shoes, ready-to-wear, and other fashion accessories. Prada licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear and L’Oréal for fragrances and cosmetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gucci</span> Italian luxury fashion house

Guccio Gucci S.p.A., doing business as Gucci, is an Italian luxury fashion house based in Florence, Italy. Its product lines include handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear, accessories, and home decoration; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty for fragrance and cosmetics under the name Gucci Beauty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Vuitton</span> French international fashion house

Louis Vuitton Malletier, commonly known as Louis Vuitton, is a French luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its products, ranging from luxury bags and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes, perfumes, watches, jewellery, accessories, sunglasses and books. Louis Vuitton is one of the world's leading international fashion houses. It sells its products through standalone boutiques, lease departments in high-end departmental stores, and through the e-commerce section of its website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamara Mellon</span> British fashion entrepreneur (born 1967)

Tamara Mellon is a British fashion entrepreneur who co-founded the luxury footwear brand Jimmy Choo. She founded her namesake luxury footwear brand, Tamara Mellon, with co-founder and CEO Jill Layfield and Tania Spinelli, chief data officer, in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fast fashion</span> Quick retail copying of catwalk trends

Fast fashion is the business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail quickly while demand is at its highest. The term fast fashion is also used generically to describe the products of this business model, particularly clothing and footwear. Retailers who employ the fast fashion strategy include Primark, H&M, Shein, and Zara, all of which have become large multinationals by driving high turnover of inexpensive seasonal and trendy clothing that appeals to fashion-conscious consumers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celine (brand)</span> French fashion brand

Celine is a French luxury fashion house founded in 1945 by designer Céline Vipiana. The headquarters are located at 16 rue Vivienne in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris at the Hôtel Colbert de Torcy, which has French Historic Monument classification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trademark</span> Trade identifier of products or services

A trademark is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies a product or service from a particular source and distinguishes it from others. A trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, a voucher, or on the product itself. Trademarks used to identify services are sometimes called service marks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Wang (designer)</span> American fashion designer (born 1983)

Alexander Wang is an American fashion designer. Wang launched his eponymous fashion brand in 2005 and came to prominence after being awarded the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2008. He is known for his urban-inspired designs and use of black.

Counterfeit consumer goods—or counterfeit, fraudulent, and suspect items (CFSI)—are goods, often of inferior quality, made or sold under another's brand name without the brand owner's authorization. The colloquial terms knockoff or dupe (duplicate) are often used interchangeably with counterfeit, although their legal meanings are not identical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philipp Plein</span> German fashion designer

Philipp Patrick Hannes Plein is a German fashion designer, entrepreneur, and the founder of the Philipp Plein International Group, which includes the Philipp Plein, Plein Sport, and Billionaire brands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silk Street</span> Shopping center in Beijing, China

Silk Street, aka Silk Market or Silk Street Market, is a shopping center in Chaoyang District, Beijing, that accommodates over 1,700 retail vendors, notorious among international tourists for their wide selection of counterfeit designer brand apparel. The Silk Street is located at Yonganli, just west of the China World Trade Centre and is accessible by subway and bus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Scafidi</span>

Susan Scafidi is an American lawyer, legal scholar, advocate, nonprofit executive, and commentator. The first professor to offer a formal course on fashion law at a U.S. law school, she is the founder and president of the Fashion Law Institute, a nonprofit organization located at the Fordham University School of Law in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fashion Law Institute</span> Council of Fashion Designers of America

Established in 2010 with the support of Diane von Furstenberg and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the Fashion Law Institute is the world's first academic center dedicated to legal and business issues pertaining to the fashion industry. The Fashion Law Institute's founder and academic director is Professor Susan Scafidi, who teaches at Fordham Law School. The Fashion Law Institute is a nonprofit organization recognized as a tax-exempt educational organization under the Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fashion tourism</span> Form of tourism about shopping in various clothing stores

Fashion tourism is a niche market segment evolved out of three major sectors: Creative Tourism, Cultural Tourism and Shopping Tourism. Fashion Tourism can be defined as “the interaction between Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs), trade associations, tourism suppliers and host communities, with people travelling to and visiting a particular place for business or leisure to enjoy, experiment, discover, study, trade, communicate about and consume fashion.”

Fashion design copyright refers to the web of domestic and international laws that protect unique clothing or apparel designs. The roots of fashion design copyright may be traced in Europe to as early as the 15th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luvanis</span>

Luvanis S.A. is a private investment company headquartered in Luxembourg and specialized in the incubation and revival of long-dormant luxury brands, also coined as “sleeping beauties”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crocodile skin</span> Skin of a live crocodile or a leather made from dead crocodile hide

Crocodile skin either refers to the skin of a live crocodile or a leather made from dead crocodile hide. It has multiple applications across the fashion industry such as use for bags, shoes, and upholstery after being farmed and treated in specialist farms and tanneries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the fashion industry</span>

The COVID-19 pandemic affects the global fashion industry as governments close down manufacturing plants, and through store closures, and event cancellations to attempt to slow the spread of the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on fashion brands worldwide. At the same time, the fashion industry faces challenges in consumer demand. New opportunities are also presenting themselves as fashion brands shift to making fashionable COVID-19 face masks. Domenico de Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International, remarked that "I have seen a lot of difficult situations in my long career and this has been the most devastating event, not just for fashion and luxury, but all industries."

References

  1. ↑ Kolsun, Barbara; Jimenez, Guillermo C., eds. (2014). Fashion law : a guide for designers, fashion executives, and attorneys (Second ed.). New York, NY. p. 2. ISBN   9781609018955.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ↑ Jimenez, Guillermo; Kolson, Barbara, eds. (2014). Fashion Law: A Guide for Designers, Fashion Executives and Attorneys (2nd ed.). Fairchild Publications. ISBN   978-1-60901-895-5., pp. iii-xii.
  3. ↑ Herzeca, Lois; Hogan, Howard (2013). Fashion Law and Business: Brands and Retailers. Practicing Law Institute. ISBN   978-1-4024-2051-1..
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