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January 17, 2008 12:16 pm
The issue of copying is a touchy one in the fashion world—anyone
remember the Nicolas Ghesquière/Kaisik Wong scandal six years back?—but recently it’s shed some of its stigma. The poster boy for brazen referencing, Marc Jacobs, has no qualms about openly embracing other designers’ fashion history. And if journalists are more ambivalent about this kind of approach, consumers don’t seem to really care. That’s certainly the case in Brazil at the high-end high street brand Forum Tufi Duek, the opening collection of São Paulo Fashion Week. Held inside Duek’s chic Jardins home for a select group of journalists, buyers, and front-row fixtures, the show was a commercial tour de force of ladylike elegance. Draped jersey gowns, black lace dresses, airy satin blouses, and a sprinkling of paillettes hit all the high-life notes that ladies who lunch will love. But the pieces were also directly inspired by other designers: Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, Stefano Pilati for YSL, and Alber Elbaz for Lanvin, to name a few. And why not? After all, Forum is first and foremost a mass-fashion brand, meeting its bottom line by selling mountains of jeans and sexy T-shirts. Its high-fashion identity is always in flux, one season taking its cues from Chanel, and the next, ironically, from Marc Jacobs. It offers consumers chic, on-trend
pieces at a more reasonable price point, instead of a prohibitively expensive, unique point of view. Is that such a bad thing?
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