Design Imitation in the Fashion Industry

The paper deals with the imitation of fashion products, an issue that attracts considerable interest in practice. Copying of fashion originals is a major concern of designers and, in particular, their financial backers. Fashion firms are having a hard time fighting imitations, but legal sanctions are not easily implemented in this industry. We study an alternative strategy that has been used by designers. Instead of fighting the imitators in the courtroom, designers fight them in the market. The designer markets her products in separate markets, typically a high class market in which the products are sold in exclusive stores at high prices. Customers in this market seek exclusivity and their utility diminishes when seeing an increasing number of copies around. Their perception of the brand tend to dilute which poses a serious threat to a fashion company. The second market is a middle class market in which there are many more buyers, and the fashion firm competes directly with the imitators in this market. This market can be used to practise price discrimination, to sell off left-over inventories, and to get a spin-off from the design. The paper models the decision problems of the fashion firm and the imitators as a two-period game in which firms make pricing decisions and decisions on when to introduce their products in the markets. In addition, the fashion firm decides how much efforts to spend to increase its brand image in the two markets.

An Examination of Contemporary Celebrity Endorsement in Fashion

This paper examines the contemporary relationship between fashion brands and celebrities. Noting the historic role of celebrities in fashion and their current prevalence in the industry, the paper moves beyond discussion of the motives and effectiveness of celebrity endorsement, and instead explores its nature and practice in the fashion sector. The paper proposes a new definition of celebrity endorsement in fashion, offers a classification of celebrities involved in fashion brand endorsement, and presents a typology examining the contemporary means by which a fashion brand may collaborate with celebrities. The typology is defined in context of the nature, length and cost to the brand of the relationship between it and the celebrity. The methodology uses secondary sources and qualitative primary research in an exploratory agenda in order to propose conclusions and suggest ideas for further research

Effective fashion brand extensions: the impact of limited edition and perceived fit on consumers' urgency to buy and brand dilution

For apparel brands, vertical-downward brand extensions are one of the most highly utilized growth strategies. By introducing a lower-cost and quality brand underneath the parent brand, apparel companies can increase sales by reaching mass-market consumers who are more price-conscious. However, the long-term success of the parent brand may be uncertain because a downward extended brand may result in dilution to the parent brand. To avoid brand dilution and create immediate sales at the same time, apparel brands have started to collaborate with a retailer providing a limited edition (i.e., limiting quantity and time) such as when Missoni collaborated with Target. Despite the growing trend, very limited academic studies are directed to understand the effectiveness of these brand extension strategies. In addition, while the notion of perceived fit is known to be critical to the success of a brand extension, perceived fit has been limitedly understood and perceived fit between brand and retailer, and perceived fit between brand and price have not been examined. To address the research gaps, this study consisted of four experimental studies guided by commodity theory, categorization theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and Weber's Law of Just Noticeable Difference. In specific, this study manipulated and tested the effect of brand extension strategy (limited edition/ongoing) (Study 1), perceived fit between brand and retailer (Study 2), extension strategy and perceived fit between brand and retailer (Study 3), and perceived fit between brand and price (Study 4) on urgency to buy and brand dilution. This research also explored the role that consumers' brand consciousness level played in the relationships in Study 2 and Study 4. Across the four studies, a total of 674 college students participated in an online experimental study. Respondents were exposed to a video stimulus that included the manipulated variables and answered questions that were pertinent to each study. High and low brands (Ralph Lauren and Lee, respectively) and retailers (Nordstrom and Target, respectively) were chosen via a pre-test and manipulated for the evaluation of perceived fit. Results showed that urgency to buy was higher when consumers were exposed to a limited edition brand extension (Study 1), perceived high-fit between brand and retailer (Study 2), perceived high-fit between brand and retailer and the brand offered a limited edition (Study 3), and perceived high-fit between brand and price (Study 4). Brand dilution occurred when the brand offered an ongoing brand extension (Study 1) and when consumers perceived low-fit between brand and price (Study 4). However, brand image concentration (i.e., improvement) occurred when a brand collaborated with a retailer, regardless of perceived fit (Study 2), consumers' brand consciousness level (Study 2), or brand extension strategy (Study 3). These findings suggest that apparel brand managers should offer their brand extensions as limited edition, collaborate with a retailer, or offer their brand extension price no greater than 20% lower than the parent brand in order to increase urgency to buy and keep or even improve the brand image. Theoretically, this study expanded the notion of fit in brand extensions to include brand and retailer fit and brand and price fit. This research was also one of the earliest studies to investigate the effects of extension strategy (limited edition/ongoing) in apparel brand extension studies. Last, but not the least academic contribution includes examining the manipulating effects for two dependent variables (urgency to buy and brand dilution), which has not been examined previously

Law, Brands, and Innovation: How Trademark Law Helps to Create Fashion Innovation, 17 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 492 (2018)

This Article explores the role of trademark law in the fashion industry. For years, the fashion industry has drawn legal scholars’ attention for its maintenance of creative endeavors within a legal environment that offers limited protection against design copying. Some influential legal studies argued that copying paradoxically helps the fashion industry as unregulated copying stimulates the creation of new designs. Yet, this Article observes that the driver for new design creation is already built into the contemporary fashion industry. The question should rather be directed at who creates fashion and how the role of the law, if any, aids the subject and mechanism of making fashion. This Article illuminates on the significant role that established fashion houses (so-called luxury companies or high-end designers) play in making fashion. This Article also suggests that these fashion houses require brands to make fashion. On this ground, this Article then demonstrates the capacity of trademark law to protect established fashion houses’ brands. The Article begins in Part One with an observation of the contemporary fashion industry and elaborating on the social mechanism of making fashion. It argues that the creation of design does not simply make fashion until it is adopted by majority of people. This Article uses the term “fashion innovation” to refer to adopted designs, distinguished from the created designs that some legal scholars called “innovation.” What trademark law helps is “fashion innovation,” that is, the law helps the adoption of new designs created by established fashion houses. An adoption is a communication process that engages the brand, which, I show, works as a semantic mechanism of making fashion innovation. Part Two and Three unfolds how trademark operates to protect brands of established fashion houses throughout case law analysis. Part Two examines the capacity of trademark law in governing iconic designs associated with established brands, which, under copyright law, would receive limited legal protection. Part Three identifies the capacity of trademark law to govern consumer associations with established brands. After all, it is the interplay among trademark law, brands, and innovation that supports the thriving fashion industry

Appropriating signs and meaning: The elusive economics of trademark

This paper deals with economic analysis of trademark. Its presence in markets is originally connected with the problem of information asymmetries and the need to provide information for assisting exchanges, so as to avert the market failure brought about by adverse selection. However this information-conveying function is also accompanied by a differentiation effect, arising from the power of persuasion that signs can exert on individuals. The exploitation of differentiation has given rise to the practice of branding, which ties markets and consumption to the realms of meaning and experience. Branding is so all-pervasive in today's economy as to have somehow transfigured it, so that the role of persuasion is now pre-eminent. Nonetheless, the mainstream economic theory tends to resist acknowledging this change, which would to a large extent call into question well-established hypotheses and theoretical tools. The general response has therefore been to assume that the informational role of trademark predominates, and to use this hypothesis to construct models, welfare evaluations and policy prescriptions that bear little or no relation to the actual markets. The opposing approach - in the shadow of the Nelson's and Arrow's seminal papers on economics of information - is recognising the idiosyncratic character of information, and therefore drawing conclusions and devising solutions that, while still based upon the welfare criterion, also incorporate a wider awareness and a deeper representation of the scenario under study. The present work attempts to move in this direction, showing how different disciplines can provide some key epistemological tools for enabling economists to effectively evaluate the welfare outcomes of the introduction and progressive alteration of a particular intellectual property right within the realm of signs and meanings.trademark, brand, intellectual property, economics of information, signs,economic welfare

Exploring the impact of product similarity and price on brand management outcomes of junior imitations and traditional senior luxury brands: the moderating roles of consumer characteristics

Often considered the sincerest form of flattery, imitation has practically always underlain the business sector. Firms mimic the innovations of others in all industries and at varied levels, resulting in a spectrum of copies that range from identical reproductions of the originals to copies with merely subtle resemblances. Intellectual property law generally prohibits the former via patent, copyright, and trademark protection. The retail sector has historically relied on trademark law to prevent imitations that confuse consumers as to the identity of the true manufacturer. However, imitations that do not create such confusion, primarily by copying aspects of another's offering that are unrelated to that firm's trademark (i.e., trend imitations), do not invoke infringement law as counterfeits do. Essentially, trend imitations are legal so long as they do not dilute the equity of the original brand. While a number of researchers have thoroughly examined consumer behavior associated with counterfeits, a much smaller sect has investigated the consumer response to trend imitations. Therefore, the purpose of the current marketing research was to uncover the effects of such trend imitation on both a luxury brand that imitates another (defined as the junior brand), as well as the luxury brand that is mimicked (defined as the senior brand). Specifically, the study employed a 3 x 2 between-subjects experimental design to examine the effects of appearance similarity and price on both junior and senior brand management outcomes (brand attitude, brand equity, and brand preference). The research was also aimed at exploring the relationships among these variables, as well the moderating effects of the consumer characteristics (ethics, prestige sensitivity, and fashion leadership) on said outcomes. Data were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduate students, with the final sample consisting of 340 participants. Of these, approximately 53% were Caucasians and approximately 90% of participants ranged from 18-22 years old. Multivariate analysis of variance was employed to test the main effects of appearance similarity and price point and the moderating effects of the consumer characteristics, while a series of regressions were performed to test the relationships between the brand management outcomes. Results revealed that similarity of juniors to seniors in terms of appearance (low, moderate, and high) and price point (at versus below) affect junior brand management outcomes, yet not those of well-known seniors. The results also reveal that consumer ethics moderate the effect of appearance similarity and price point on both junior and senior brand management outcomes, while fashion leadership moderates that effect only with respect to the senior brand. The findings further support the existence of relationships between the brand management outcomes of brand attitude, brand equity, and brand preference for both junior and senior brands. The research reveals a deeper conceptualization of consumer response to retail imitation practices, and provides managerial insight to both junior and senior brands involved in imitation practices. Limitations and future research directions are also offered

Gone in Sixty Milliseconds: Trademark Law and Cognitive Science

Trademark dilution is a cause of action for interfering with the uniqueness of a trademark. For example, consumers would probably not think that Kodak soap was produced by the makers of Kodak cameras, but its presence in the market would diminish the uniqueness of the original Kodak mark. Trademark owners think dilution is harmful but have had difficulty explaining why. Many courts have therefore been reluctant to enforce dilution laws, even while legislatures have enacted more of them over the past half century. Courts and commentators have now begun to use psychological theories, drawing on associationist models of cognition, to explain how a trademark can be harmed by the existence of similar marks even when consumers can readily distinguish the marks from one another and thus are not confused. Though the cognitive theory of dilution is internally consistent and appeals to the authority of science, it does not rest on sufficient empirical evidence to justify its adoption. Moreover, the harms it identifies do not generally come from commercial competitors but from free speech about trademarked products. As a result, even a limited dilution law should be held unconstitutional under current First Amendment commercial-speech doctrine. In the absence of constitutional invalidation, the cognitive explanation of dilution is likely to change the law for the worse. Rather than working like fingerprint evidence--which ideally produces more evidence about already-defined crimes--psychological explanations of dilution are more like economic theories in antitrust, which changed the definition of actionable restraints of trade. Given the empirical and normative flaws in the cognitive theory, using it to fill dilution\u27s theoretical vacuum would be a mistake

The challenges of luxury fashion flagship hotels: The case of Maison Moschino

In the last few years, many luxury fashion labels have ventured into the hospitality industry. Italian houses have been particularly active in capitalizing on their brand value by employing brand extension to create branded hotels where customers can experience a lifestyle that reflects the spirit of the label. After a phase of rapid expansion, however, this phenomenon appears to have slowed down. Taking the case of Maison Moschino, the first foray of fashion brand Moschino into the hospitality industry, this article explores the rationale for such brand extensions. In light of the failure of that venture, the opportunities and the risks involved in brand extension are examined

Counterfeits, Copying and Class

Consumers who want to express themselves by wearing contemporary clothing styles should not have to choose between expensive brands and counterfeit products. There should be a clear distinction in trademark law between illegal, counterfeit goods and perfectly legal (at least with respect to trademark law) knockoffs, in which aesthetically functional design attributes have been copied but trademarks have not. Toward that end, as a normative matter, the aesthetic features of products should not be registrable or protectable as trademarks or trade dress, regardless of whether they have secondary meaning, just as functional attributes of a utilitarian nature are not eligible for Lanham Act protection. With enough advertising, any product feature can acquire distinctiveness. Only the assertive deployment of functionality bars by courts can prevent the illegitimate and costly construction of trademark-based product monopolies. The purported trademark-related harms that stem from the production and distribution of noncounterfeit knockoffs are, in reality, the effects of legitimate competition based on attributes such as price, quality, consumer appeal, and retail availability, with which trademark law should not interfere. Repressing or illegalizing knockoffs illegitimately prevents lower income people from procuring and enjoying goods with aesthetic attributes that are not properly monopolized through trademark law, and probably perversely increases the demand for counterfeit items