And even if you meet that standard, it’s expensive and time consuming. In the case of patent, it has to be new to all the world. In the case of copyright, you can protect anything that’s original. “But the Patent Office standards for what qualifies as new are pretty high. So copyright doesn’t protect it, which, in theory, means designers could go to the Patent Office to protect their designs,” Scafidi says. “Over 100 years ago, the United States Copyright Office decided that all fashion, no matter how fanciful, is functional. But obtaining a patent can present some challenges. Scafidi says American copyright law protects only the two-dimensional aspects of fashion design-like the pattern of a fabric-and not the functional aspects-like the cut of a fabric-and that designers often have to turn to patent law to protect the decorative elements of functional items. The Great Outdoors and specifically, the appeal of National Parks served as inspiration for various color palettes.”Ĭoincidental or not, the controversy sparked by Monge’s video illustrates how complicated and difficult it can be to legally protect fashion design, according to Susan Scafidi, the founder and director of Fordham’s Fashion Law Institute. Due to the popularity of the style, we continued it in 2021 under our design concept ‘Hybrid World,’ which explores original design concepts informed by the physical and digital realities of modern lives. “The first results of that Chuck 70 design released in October 2020, which took inspiration from the map patterns of Nor’easter storms. “In November 2018, our design team was working against a seasonal Nor’easter creative direction, and the shoe design was initiated in April of 2019,” a spokesperson for Converse told her. The company further elaborated on its “footwear development process” in an email to Monge that she shared with TIME. So I made the TikTok because I wanted to share my experience and spread awareness.”
“Within the industry, you learn that this is something that happens to smaller designers and, unfortunately, is super common.
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“I originally saw Converse’s National Park line while I was just scrolling through TikTok, and my immediate reaction was, ‘Wow, that looks really similar to what I pitched two years ago.’ So I ran downstairs, checked my files, looked at the PDF that I had sent in, and started panicking a little bit,” Monge tells TIME.
In the video, Monge states that the shoes and her designs are “essentially the same.”
In a now-viral video posted on May 21, 22-year-old designer Cecilia Monge juxtaposed designs she says she shared with Converse in November 2019 with both the Bright Poppy and Red Bark editions of the company’s Chuck 70 National Parks high-tops. A TikTok accusing Converse of stealing designs that were submitted by an intern applicant has shed more light on alleged copying in the fashion world and the few avenues available to designers who suspect their art has been co-opted by brands.