“Local brands do not want to pay leading designers but they want to showcase their work. So they display outfits with similar work done by designers in their stores. To attract consumers they offer lesser price than the original. Now this is the problem area,” said JJ Valaya at a discussion on “Plagiarism in Fashion” at Oxford Bookstore recently.
Explaining how plagiarism is eating into business of top notch designers, Valaya felt that the secondary market represented by local brands has taken plagiarism to a pernicious level. “Couture is about wedding, looking original. But obviously these guys follow different kind of rules. In secondary market you will find outfits which look great on the day you buy but do not represent genuine work,” said Valaya, An aggrieved man, Valaya felt that blatant copying of designs, motifs like identical floral patterns, embroideries by unethical businessmen selling in the grey market needs to come to a halt. And plagiarism is palpable in metros, particularly in downmarket Lajpat Nagar, Gandhi Nagar and Chandni Chowk, where small time traders have the audacity to sell a Rohit Bal or Tarun Tahiliani lookalike in a city where big names sell their original stuff in their stores needs to be stopped.
Elaborating on plagiarism within the city, copyright expert Safir Anand said: “If you go to Lajpat Nagar, you would find that shopkeepers are not deterred from selling fake outfits. At Gandhi Nagar a counterfeit market is thriving there. Since they know that their shady work can land them in trouble they deliver the outfit through other means.”
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Emphasising the need for designers to stand united against imposters and come out strongly as a fraternity when fakes get detected, Safir said: “Designers are basically artists. But they are a little bit confused on how to go about it. Once designer creates a drawing it should become his copyright. There needs to be protection for his drawing. Once Tarun Tahiliani proceeded on a case where the point was that his drawing made in the course of creating a garment is his artistic craftsmanship. However, there are designers who want to take action but do not have drawings. Or drawings were made by their assistants who are no longer working with them. Not having drawing complicates the matter while pursuing a case against a plagiarist.”
But are designers taking those following unethical business practices to court?
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Safir said: “I cannot name but one Indian designer has gone to the court in the United States. Stricter laws are needed in our country.” He also pointed out that international brands ensure there is protection; court has restrained defendants from selling counterfeit Louis Vuitton products.
Illustrating another example to stress the need for designers to have efficacious safeguards, Harper’s Bazaar India Editor Nonita Kalra said when there is copyright on certain asanas in yoga.
Speakers emphasised that just like copyright laws are strictly enforced when it comes to big brands like Louis Vuitton they also need to be enforced when it comes to work of designers like JJ Valaya and Sabyasachi Mukherjee.
Valaya felt it was high time that designers protect configuration, pattern, ornament or composition of lines. A couple of years ago, the designer, would not have been unduly bothered about plagiarism. But now with images of attires shown in fashion weeks freely available on fashion websites on the same day and increasing number of fakes being identified in metros, Valaya wants unscrupulous people to be brought to book. “As designers all of us are united when it comes to fighting plagiarism. FDCI has supported us; action taken against such plagiarists. They have been banned from our shows.”