Trademark Infringement, Intellectual Property Rights, Taxes, and FASHION?! You may ask yourself how these words go together? Well although fashion is fun and makes you feel fancy free the designers must follow the law like everyone else in the world. A big problem that comes up in the fashion world is trademark infringement. Which is the equivalence of copying someone else’s style and not getting permission or giving them the credit for the inspiration.
Recently the famous Christian Louboutin has been on a suing spree. Beginning with my personal favorite fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent for producing a certain style of shoe that features a red sole like all the Louboutin footware. Louboutin is very serious about protecting his brand and has also sued a second company by the name of Carmen Steffens of Brazil. Christian Louboutin makes a great argument in his statement to Vogue “My company has a trademark on the red sole and if we don’t enforce it this would leave the door open for other brands to copy us while jeopardizing the identity of the Louboutin red sole. No one before me has ever used a coloured sole to define a brand’s identity. (MILLIGAN, 2011)”
Tony Duquette inc. also feels very strongly about this issue of trademark infringement so they are holders of many intellectual property rights. They recently filed a suit against the J. Crew Group for trademark infringement. Not only did J. Crew copy Duquettes signature leopard print but also they solidified the infringement by using the property name Duquette to describe their leopard print sweater. This is in my opinion is blatant infringement where J. Crew didn’t care enough to think before doing so. The actual product is titled as follows “J. Crew Duquette Factory Leopard Print sweater (Newswire, 2011).” J. Crew was not discrete about it nor did they ask for permission and that in my eyes makes the violation horrible.
Paying proper taxes is not only an issue that everyday people have to deal with but also big name designers like Dolce and Gabbana. The court of Milan recently dismissed the lawsuit that Italian tax authorities had on the remarkable fashion duo. The suit involved an alleged non-payment of $588 million in taxes by the fashion house (Deeny, 2011). Dolce or Gabanna have not to given a statement on the issue nor have any members of the fashion house. The said amount of evaded taxes come from when they sold both fashion and lifestyle brands but allegedly undervalued the two brands. The punishment for a tax evasion of this magnitude is time in jail. When you are a big name designer that is all the more reason to follow the law because the fall for you is going to be longer and harder. Although the case was dismissed the authorities are going to appeal and lets just hope that Dolce and Gabanna have the same positive outcome as this trial.Fashion is definitely my passion in life but in order to be successful in anything you must know the laws that you are required to follow. I want to be creative but I must make sure I give credit where credit is due, I must receive permission if I want to use someone’s style as inspiration, and I must always pay my taxes……CORRECTLY!
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