Ethics out of fashion on the trend treadmill

If there is a blatant infringement, most retailers will likely settle

In 2007, when Marc Jacobs was the creative director of luxury French brand Louis Vuitton, owned by Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, he sent models showcasing his spring/summer collection at the Paris Fashion Week down the runway carrying chequered nylon shopping totes resembling the ubiquitous “Ghana Must Go” or “Chinatown” bag.

The bag, which street vendors in South Africa sell for no more than R20, was offered by the luxury brand for a laughable $595.

That same year, LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division reported organic growth of 10%.

The blatant appropriation of fashion items has called into question the responsibility fashion houses have to credit their sources, and highlights the high pressure faced by “fast fashion” hubs.

This week, South African designer Laduma Ngxokolo’s MaXhosa by Laduma label was a casualty of fast-fashion Spanish retailer Zara, owned by global retail giant Inditex, after socks with a pattern that resembled Ngxokolo’s design were placed on Zara’s shelves, without credit. Since being called out on it, Zara has begun pulling the products from stores worldwide.

In June last year Asos, the UK online fastfashion retailer, was accused of stealing one of US-based designer Anifa Mvuemba’s dress designs from her label Hanifa.

The demand for fast fashion places immeasurable pressure on retailers, which have to churn out products in a 15-day time frame, from concept to completion. This deepens faultlines in due processes.

The almost instant gratification of fast fashion has become a minefield for retailers trying to manage the risks associated with copyright infringement.

Sumaiya De’Mar, a fashion lawyer, says the law protects independent designers through copyright. “Any work, as long as it is original and recorded in material form, is protected by copyright law,” she says.

This protection extends to countries governed by the Berne Convention, which includes the UK, US, Australia, France and South Africa.

De’Mar says that although trends are often created by everyone, the difference comes when a designer puts “their own finishing touch to it. That item [then] belongs to [them] in terms of copyright law.”

In David and Goliath cases, when smaller designers go up against multinational retailers, the matter is often settled out of court. “If there is a blatant infringement, they will most likely settle, as they generally do have a budget for these kind of issues,” De’Mar says.

Ngxokolo, like many independent designers, is at the mercy of a consumer culture where clothes are now disposable — an environment in which fashion retailers have to create clothing that flies off the shelves within hours.

Part of the problem is that retailers are in the business of supply-chain management and have not invested enough in critical soft skills.

As for the sustainability of the fastfashion business model, there should be a greater emphasis on ethical considerations by retailers, which need to ask themselves how far they are willing to go for an extra buck.