thieves and liars

I was checking out the online store Karmaloop for the heck of it yesterday and other than being totally shocked that it’s even still around (since my pathetic and brief stint at raverdom in ’99), I was sad to see Jeffrey Campbell’s “The Burbs” shoe for sale. I’m not even going to bother posting a picture here. I don’t want that garbage in my Flickr account. It’s not like I haven’t seen countless copies of Burberry Prorsum’s studded platform sandal. They’re on the crazy cheap shoe sites for $25, and it’s honestly been very hard not to get them because they are such a bad ass shoe, but to see a decent shoe line pull such a sheisty move to even name the shoe “The Burbs”? Give me a break. I guess J.C. is joining the ranks of Steve Madden.

the original

I take serious issue with copies. (Check out this blog by law professor Susan Scafidi to stay current on recent cases.) Obviously, it’s theft. You might as well paint your own version of a Picasso and pass it off as your original idea. Fashion designers are artists and their original concepts belong to them alone. Now, some things are a little ridiculous. Oxford shoes are always going to be oxfords and mary janes will always have a little strap. Sometimes the lawsuits get a little nitpicking but when it comes to completely original designs, and things that become a line’s signature, e.g., red soles, that’s when it’s just embarassing. It’s like seeing a lady at a bus stop in a stained sweatsuit and a LV bag. Now, who does she think she’s fooling? It’s the same when you wear a cheap counterfeit of a $940 pair of shoes. You will be fooling no one. The folks who have no clue… well, they have no clue but, you do.

To be fair, the majority of people don’t keep up with designers so, they could see a copy in a store and have no clue it wasn’t an original idea. This happened to me at Forever 21 a couple years ago. I bought what I thought was one of the most adorable dresses ever, only to find out it was an Anna Sui rip off a few weeks later. Now, the dress is my little joke on the whole ordeal. (That fabric still came from where?)

Anna Sui dress & Forever 21 top

What I would really really like to know is the manufacturing side of things. I know a quite a bit but, when it gets down to the dirty details, I feel like I’m going by rumor alone. I met a girl in between classes one day who was a fashion merchandising major. She began to reveal to me the shady truth that a lot of things are made in the same factories. A high end designer can have something contracted out to be made and then after the job is done, that same factory has the know-how and capabilities to reproduce a designer piece. More often than not, they use lesser quality materials but the basics of construction are the same. What I have yet to figure out is how these things get contracted out. I’m curious to know if the factories have a list of designers they call to let them know they have inside knowledge on the latest thing or… who knows. Really, who knows? Please tell me if you do.

I’m especially curious as to how a half-dozen designers all come out with their version of the same thing each season. Lets not be coy here and think that high-end designers are without fault. Please tell me why, all of a sudden, extreme platform stiletto shoes, or shoe-booties are popular this fall, or why anything becomes a common theme, for that matter? Spies? Insider tips? A roll of the dice? It’s all a crock if you ask me.

 The same goes for stolen blog content. I will take this opportunity to express my total disgust for the spam blogs out there who have been repeatedly stealing my content and placing it on their own blogs. The idiocy of the whole thing is that no one is reading. It appears that they go by title alone and I now understand why so many bloggers out there are adopting obscure titles, which I will also have to start doing. The one that really took the cake was my post called “restraint” as in, being a more responsible consumer. I had no idea it would be placed on an erotic website with S&M links all around it! Total morons. My cease and desist email was followed by a quick removal… but not completely. There is still some strange electronic trace left which will links us forever in cyberspace. It truly makes me sick.

I guess the moral to this story is that you’re a weasel bastard if you try to pass off other people’s ideas as your own, and if you buy into it knowingly, you’re not that much better. When a person’s ideas and artistic vision are finally regarded with a bit more respect, then maybe the laws will be tough enough to discourage such blatant fraud and appropriation. Maybe the laws aren’t all that tough because people know it’s a load of crap.

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Tagged as: annoyances, art, design, fashion, shoes, shopping