Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-r6qrq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T05:09:19.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Design Piracy in the Fashion Industries of Paris and New York in the Interwar Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2011

Véronique Pouillard
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the Great Depression, counterfeiters of the newest styles posed a challenge to the high-fashion designers who dominated Parisian design. Meanwhile, New York, traditionally the destination of the first corporate buyers of Paris couture, became a potential contender for the role of fashion capital. Scrutiny of French and American laws reveals that strong national interests were at stake in the fashion business. In France, the law safeguarded copyrights of fashion design while, in the United States, legislators denied such protection to American fashion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 85 , Issue 2 , Summer 2011 , pp. 319 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement, www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0901/090108washington/htm, accessed 20 May 2009. On the transatlantic fashion business, see: Blaszczyk, Regina L., “Aux couleurs franco-américaines: Quand la haute couture parisienne rencontre la confection new-yorkaise,” Le Mouvement social 221 (2007): 9–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Green, Nancy L., Ready-to-Wear and Ready-to-Work: A Century of Industry and Immigrants in Paris and in New York (Durham, N.C., 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palmer, Alexandra, Couture and Commerce: The Transatlantic Fashion Trade in the 1950s (Vancouver, 2001)Google Scholar; Troy, Nancy, Couture Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 2002)Google Scholar.

2 Better Business Bureau, “High Fashion at Low Prices?” http://www.bbb.org/us/article/high–fashion–at–low–prices–bbb, accessed 25 May 2009.

3 Allérès, Danielle, “La propriété industrielle dans l'univers du luxe,” Réseaux 88/89 (1998): 4Google Scholar; Mihm, Stephen, A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Stewart, Mary Lynn, “Copying and Copyrighting Haute Couture: Democratizing Fashion, 1900–1930s,” French Historical Studies 28, no. 1 (2005): 103–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; about the U.S., see Marcketti, Sara Beth, “Design Piracy in the United States Women's Ready-to-Wear Apparel Industry, 1910–1941,” PhD diss., Iowa State University, 2005, 2Google Scholar.

5 Troy, Couture Culture; Palmer, Couture and Commerce; Blaszczyk, “Aux couleurs franco-américaines,” 9–32.

6 Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class (Boston, 1973, first published 1899)Google Scholar.

7 Bourdieu, Pierre, La Distinction: Critique sociale du jugement (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar.

8 Barthes, Roland, Système de la mode (Paris, 1967), 332Google Scholar.

9 Jones, Geoffrey, Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry (Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar.

10 Hawes, Elizabeth, Fashion is Spinach (New York, 1938), 16Google Scholar.

11 “The Dressmakers of France,” Fortune, Aug. 1932, 17.

12 Lipovetsky, Gilles, L'empire de l'éphémère: La mode et son destin dans les sociétés modernes (Paris, 1987)Google Scholar.

13 “L'influence parisienne,” International Textiles 2 (28 Nov. 1934): 21Google Scholar, Victoria & Albert Museum, Archives of Art & Design (hereafter AAD); “Le but de l'Officiel de la Couture et de la Mode de Paris,” L'Officiel de la couture et de la mode de Paris: Organe de propagande et d'expansion de l'art français 4 (Mar. 1924): 1Google Scholar.

14 Fashion Forecast Conferences, Proceedings, Rockefeller Center, 6, Sept. 1933, 3, box 72, folder 10, New York Public Library, Fashion Group International Archive (hereafter FGIA).

15 Im-ex. la grande revue belge pour le développement et l'expansion des industries du vêtement (Brussels, Feb. 1926), 19Google Scholar.

16 Willy Devos, “L'Utilité de l'intervention du commissionnaire pour l'acheteur étranger,” Im-ex. La grande revue belge, 28.

17 Grumbach, Didier, Histoires de la mode (Paris, 1993), 61–62Google Scholar; Deschamps, Georgette, La Crise dans les Industries du Vêtement et de la Mode à Paris pendant la période de 1930 à 1937 (Paris, 1937), 51Google Scholar.

18 Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 38.

19 “FOGA et al., Sue Lucille Baldwin Here,” Women's Wear Daily (hereafter WWD), 14 Oct. 1936, sec. 1, 1, 35. For currency conversions, see www.measuringworth.com/.

20 Pouillard, Véronique, “In the Shadow of Paris? French Haute Couture and Belgian Fashion between the Wars,” in Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers, ed. Blaszczyk, Regina Lee (Philadelphia, 2007), 62–81Google Scholar.

21 Sombart, Werner, Luxus und Kapitalismus (Munich, 1922)Google Scholar.

22 “The Dressmakers of France,” Fortune, Aug. 1932, 76, 78.

23 Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 46; on the copying practices prior to the time frame of this article, see Troy, Couture Culture.

24 Simon, Philippe, La Haute Couture: Monographie d'une industrie de luxe (Paris, 1931), 142Google Scholar.

25 Bertram J. Perkins, “Klotz Deplores Inefficiency of French Style Piracy Laws,” WWD, 22 May 1929, sec. 1, 1.

26 Pouillard, Véronique, Hirsch & Cie Bruxelles, 1869–1962 (Brussels, 2000), 33Google Scholar.

27 Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 40.

28 Simon, La Haute Couture, 156–57.

29 Fèvre, Georges Le, Au secours de la couture (industrie française) (Paris, 1929), 103–11Google Scholar.

30 Simon, La Haute Couture, 146.

31 Ibid., 145.

32 Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 45.

33 Le Fèvre, Au secours de la couture, 93.

34 William P. Carney, “Paris Plans Curb on Bootleg Styles,” New York Times (hereafter NYT ), 8 Nov. 1931, E4.

35 Simon, La Haute Couture, 153–57.

36 Ibid., 134.

37 Intervention at the Fashion Group by Paul Bonner, 6 May 1931, box 72, folder 3, FGIA.

38 Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, Commerce de la France (Paris, 1926), 101Google Scholar.

39 Transcript of Andrew Goodman interview about the Uptown Retail Guild, 2, reference x–20, Gladys Marcus Library, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) special collections, New York.

40 Bertram J. Perkins, “New York Trip Disappoints Commissionaire,” WWD, 24 May 1929, sec. 1, 4.

41 “Paris Papers Warn of Copying Penalties,” WWD, 25 Apr. 1929, sec. 1, 14.

42 Simon, La Haute Couture, 46.

43 Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 47.

44 Elizabeth Hawes, vita, Box 1, 1, reference x–149, Gladys Marcus Library, FIT Special Collections.

45 Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 40.

46 Ibid., 53.

47 Garnier, Guillaume, “Le milieu de la mode,” in Paris-Couture: Années trente, ed. Garnier, Guillaume (Paris, 1987), 123Google Scholar.

48 Palmer, Couture and Commerce.

49 Marle, Fr., “Lettre de Paris: La Resquille dans la Haute Couture Parisienne,” Textilis 9 (1 June 1937): 9Google Scholar.

50 Committee Meeting Records (hereafter CMR), 9 Dec. 1939, Lucien Lelong, Archives of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (hereafter CSCP).

51 “Piguet Divulges Names of Firms to Which Early Model Shipments Went,” WWD, 1 Sept. 1936, sec. 1, 1.

52 Gotshal, Sylvan, The Pirates Will Get You: A Story of the Fight for Design Protection (New York, 1945), 7Google Scholar.

53 Geoffrey Jones and David Kiron, “Cisco Goes to China: Routing an Emerging Economy,” Harvard Business School case 805–020 (July 2004).

54 Gotshal, The Pirates, 31–32.

55 “Hearings on Vestal Bill,” NYT, 14 Dec. 1930.

56 Daves, Jessica, Ready-Made Miracle: The American Story of Fashion for the Millions (New York, 1967), 10Google Scholar.

57 Gotshal, The Pirates, 37.

58 Ibid., 38–41.

59 Ibid., 7–8.

60 Lehmann, Ulrich, Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity (Cambridge, Mass., 2001)Google Scholar.

61 Simon, La Haute Couture, 166.

62 Edelman, Bernard and Heinich, Nathalie, L'art en conflits (Paris, 2002)Google Scholar.

63 Garnier, “Le milieu de la mode,” 75.

64 On the Chambre Syndicale, see Grumbach, Histoires. On Vionnet, see Kirke, Betty, Madeleine Vionnet (San Francisco, 1998)Google Scholar; Golbin, Pamela, Madeleine Vionnet: Puriste de la mode (Paris, 2009)Google Scholar; and Florence Brachet Champsaur, “Aux Galeries Lafayette and the Couture Industry, 1890–1952,” paper presented at the joint BHC-EBHA conference, Milan, 12 June 2009.

65 CMR, 30 May 1933, 1, CSCP.

66 Deschamps, La Crise dans les Industries du Vêtement.

67 “Accord entre la haute couture et la confection,” CMR, 4 July 1930, 5–6 and 22 Jan. 1932, CSCP.

68 General Assembly Records, 7 May 1930, 3, CSCP.

69 Simon, La Haute Couture, 161–63.

70 Johnson, Paul, Creators: From Chaucer and Dürer to Picasso and Disney (New York, 2006), 227Google Scholar; Stewart, “Copying and Copyrighting Haute Couture,” 112, 128.

71 “Couturiers Who Count,” WWD, 26 June 1931, sec. 1, 4.

72 Troy, Couture Culture.

73 “Couturiers Who Count,” WWD, June 26, 1931, s. 1, p. 4.

74 Ibid.

75 Grumbach, Histoires,27; Simon, La Haute Couture, 153.

76 CMR, 27 Oct. 1931, 2, CSCP.

77 William P. Carney, “Paris Plans Curb on Bootleg Styles,” NYT, 8 Nov. 1931, E4.

78 Chapsal, Madeleine, La chair de la robe (Paris, 1991), 213Google Scholar.

79 CMR, 15 Oct. 1930, 3 and 2 Apr. 1931, 18, Affaire Aîné–Montaille, CSCP.

80 CMR, 24 Sept. 1930, 5–7, Affaire Alice Choquet, CSCP.

81 Chapsal, La chair, 213; Daves, Ready-Made Miracle, 148; Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 60–61.

82 Advertisement for Chanel, Vogue, U.S. edition, 1 Nov. 1934, 99.

83 Fashion Group Bulletin, Jan. 1933, no. 3, box 144, Fashion Group International Archive, New York Public Library.

84 Advertisement for dresses in “Chanel Cloth” for the brand Rose Amado, Madison Ave., New York, in Vogue, U.S. ed. 15 Mar. 1932, 26.

85 Hawes, Fashion is Spinach, 46.

86 Bourdieu, Pierre, “Le capital social: Notes provoisoires,” Actes de la recherches en sciences sociales 31 (1980): 2–3Google Scholar.

87 Sandra Stansbery Buckland, “Promoting American Designers, 1940–44: Building Our Own House,” in Twentieth–Century American Fashion, ed. Welters, Linda and Cunningham, Patricia (New York, 2005), 99–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 “Seek Real Change in Women's Styles,” NYT, 24 Apr. 1927, E19.

89 Kidwell, Claudia B. and Christman, Margaret C., Suiting Everyone: The Democratization of Clothing in America (Washington D.C., 1974), 177Google Scholar.

90 “The Dressmakers of the U.S.,” Fortune, Dec. 1933, 37–38.

91 Hawes, vita, 1, FIT.

92 Ibid.; “Paris Cold to Show of American Designer,” NYT, 25 July 1931, 2.

93 “Finds Style Center Here,” NYT, 14 Apr. 1932, 18.

94 Elizabeth Hawes, book draft, box 3, folder 1, reference x–149, Gladys Marcus Library, FIT Special Collections.

95 Bertram J. Perkins, “Dress Up America Aims Somewhat Misinterpreted,” and “Les Echos Cites Failure to Create American Style,” both in WWD, 19 May 1933, sec. 1, 2.

96 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 53.

97 Daves, Ready-Made Miracle, 61–62.

98 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 81.

99 “The Dressmakers of the U.S.,” 38.

100 Transcript of Andrew Goodman interview, 1–2, FIT.

101 “The Dressmakers of the U.S.,” 142; Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 130.

102 Advertisement for FOGA, WWD, 26 June 1933, 10–11.

103 Advertisement, “Members of the Fashion Originators Guild of America Announce Their Opening Dates,” WWD, 28 June 1933, 3.

104 “Fashion Week Announced,” NYT, 7 Dec. 1956, 42.

105 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 119, 120, 131, 136–38, 145–46.

106 “Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Dall to Get First NRA Coat Labels,” WWD, 4 Oct. 1933, sec. 1, 1.

107 Brinkley, Alan, Liberalism and Its Discontents (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 37–44Google Scholar.

108 “Rentner to be Honored,” NYT, 20 Nov. 1933, 17.

109 “Retailers See NRA as a Lasting Boon,” NYT, 22 Nov. 1933, 5.

110 Unlike in other countries, such as, for example Germany and Belgium. Pouillard, Hirsch & Cie.

111 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 133–35.

112 “The Dressmakers of the U.S.,” 142.

113 “Piguet Divulges Names of Firms to which Early Model Shipments Went,” WWD, 1 Sept. 1936, sec. 1, 1.

114 “FOGA et al., Sue Lucille Baldwin Here,” WWD, 14 Oct. 1936, sec. 1, 35.

115 “Fashion Guild Plans Protection Campaign,” WWD, 22 May 1934, sec. 2, 8.

116 “Question Dress Guild Plans,” NYT, 21 Jan. 1933, 29.

117 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 137.

118 Transcript of Andrew Goodman interview, 2, FIT.

119 “Two Guilds in Accord,” NYT, 4 Mar. 1936, 30.

120 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 130.

121 “Retailers Attack Dress Style Plan,” NYT, 21 Dec. 1935, 30.

122 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 122, 138.

123 “Peace Move Made in Guild Dispute,” NYT, 3 Mar. 1936, 30.

124 WWD, 6 Apr. 1939, 1, 6.

125 WWD, 16 May 1939, 4.

126 Bertram J. Perkins, “FOGA–Paris Plan to Check Delivery to Model Renters Interests Returning Buyers,” WWD, 3 May 1939, 1; and “Trouyet, PAIS Piracy Defense Head, Resigns,” WWD, 26 May 1939, 1.

127 Marcketti, “Design Piracy,” 142–43.

128 Ibid., 112–15.

129 Simon, La Haute Couture, 34.

130 Raustiala, Kai and Springman, Christopher, “The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design,” Virginia Law Review 92 (2006)Google Scholar.

131 Ruth La Ferla, “Imitate that Zipper!” NYT, 2 Sept. 2009, accessed on nytimes.com, 3 Sept. 2009.

132 Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, “Statement of the United States Copyright Office before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property,” 109th Congress, 2nd Sess., 27 July 2007, on-line at www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat072706, accessed 2 Sept. 2009.