A Fashion Law Dinner Party
with Fashion by Felicia
Welcome to A Fashion Law Dinner Party! With Felicia Caponigri, an attorney by training and an academic by calling, be a guest alongside fashion archivists, curators, attorneys representing brands and lawyers otherwise practicing IP law and more areas of fashion law, in house counsels and more guests. We’ll discuss cutting edge topics in the fash ...
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Fashion benefits from a number of source communities, communities from whom cultural practices, traditional knowledge and even artisanship and designs themselves originate. In this Fashion Law Dinner Party we begin an extended exploration of the source communities that shape the fashion products we buy today, and even the designers and Creative Directors fashion brands hire. In this episode we speak with fashion scholar Michelle McVicker whose research, scholarship, and work as a cultural heritage professional, explores Latinx fashion. How are Latinx fashion designers building their heritage into the fashion products they design today? What can we learn about Latinx fashion from icons like Frida Kahlo and Jennifer Lopez? And, how are we commemorating and preserving fashion artifacts from the Latinx community? These questions, and more, are part of our dinner party conversation. You can also reference the following articles and resources for more on Latinx fashion: Why We're Saying "Latine", Chicago History Museum, https://www.chicagohistory.org/why-were-saying-latine/ The BoF Podcast | Willy Chavarria on Promoting Social Justice Through Fashion, https://www.businessoffashion.com/podcasts/luxury/willy-chavarria-on-promoting-social-justice-through-fashion/
Following our dinner party with Professor Cathay Smith and a discussion about the fashion law ramifications of reproducing the American flag on clothing and using the American flag as part of fashion expressions, we turn to examining American fashion and style with archivists and fashion historians. What makes American style? What are the origins of an American fashion brand logo? What role does nostalgia have in our conceptions of American fashion heritage? During this Fashion Law Dinner Party we delve deep into the Tommy Hilfiger Archive with Becca Love, Senior Brand Archivist and Brand Historian at Tommy Hilfiger. We also speak with fashion historian Sarah Byrd about American style in the context of freedom and American communities.
Having discovered the art, history, and culture of Paris, and its relevance for fashion, the second part of our Parisian Fashion Law Dinner Party turns to French Fashion Law. There is a myth that France extends more legal protection to fashion designs than the U.S. through French copyright law. Is this true? We talk to Laurine Janin-Reynaud, an IP attorney with TAoMA Partners based in Paris, about this legal myth, and more French legal claims, from parasitism to trademark dilution and even the concept of ambush marketing. After exploring intellectual property law's application to fashion in France, we turn to fashion archives in Paris. Valentina Cognini, a historical archivist with experience in fashion archives in the U.S., Italy, and France shares the nuances of preserving French fashion with us. We also discuss what makes a Parisienne.
Paris has been characterized as the capital of fashion. But what makes Paris so important for fashion, especially for the preservation of fashion's past? How do art and fashion meet in Paris and affect our perceptions of what counts as French fashion heritage? In the first part of this Parisian Fashion Law Dinner Party, we speak to Anya Firestone, the creator of premiere luxury cou-tours in Paris and the founder of Maison Firestone, to discover the rich interconnectivity between art, history, and culture in the French fashion capital.
A central symbol of an American summer is the American flag. With the 4th of July, we find more and more fashion featuring the American flag. But the American flag can also be a part of brands' heritage and identities. Why can artists and fashion designers alike reinterpret the flag and make their own prints or patterns with the flag? Are there any laws that actually circumscribe the use of the American flag? In this episode, we speak to Professor Cathay Smith, a copyright, art law, and cultural heritage law expert at Chicago-Kent College of Law, about these questions and artists' and fashion designers' use of American icons like the flag and even the Statue of Liberty in their creations. As part of our conversation, we discuss how we decide what is original or not when designers use American icons like the flag and explore some imaginary fact patterns involving American brands like Ralph Lauren and a French brand, Dior, that was inspired by both the American and French flags.