Love. Angel. Music. Thievery. Gwen "I'm So Original" Stefani and Her Shameless Ripoff

I read this quote on a blog when researching for this post and just had to laugh:

"Gwen's the muse of the unconventional," said Michele Scannavini, president of Coty Prestige Worldwide. "She has a style that is unmistakable, different, so unique that she can really create trends in the world. We are impressed by how global she is." (Women's Wear Daily, 12/7/2006)

Why? While Gwen is fashion-forward, I'd hardly call her unique; she just has a good eye on what will be the next big trend and capitalizes on that before someone else does. She's not inventing the style, she's just wearing it first and acting like she invented it.

What's worse, is now she or someone on her design team is ripping off logo designs from famous anime/manga and acting all "We're hip and Original." Like real Japanophiles wouldn't notice! Yay for the Disgrasian Girls for bringing this to my attention, albeit indirectly.

Look at the Ads below. Does the "L" logo look familiar to you guys at all? (As always, click on the photos to make them bigger.)







Say, like a certain fave character of mine's logo, by any chance?



The font is unmistakeable, though slightly bastardized, and surely using that font plus the letter "L" canNOT be coincidental. Did they HAVE to pick that exact gothic font for her line? The answer is no. It's just. . . I don't. . . I am speechless. And if anyone ever overhears someone say that Obata stole the "L" from Gwen's perfume, I give them permission to stab that person with an ice pick. Multiple times. Until the pain goes away. I dont even know if there is any recourse for this that Obata could do; can he sue her? I'm not really sure he could, or that he would even want to, but it's just. . . unbelievable.

It wouldn't be so annoying to me, except for the fact that she is suing someone for basically doing the same thing. Her lawsuit makes me laugh because frankly she "steals" from a lot of different cultures and designers herself, just like everybody else in the fashion world, yet has the gall to say she is doing something original. (and don't give me that "fashion is cyclical" crap; while I get that it is, this is a totally different thing.)

Yes, I've looked at her real design versus the knockoff, and yes they are similar, but REAL designers, people who have trained their whole lives in fashion and design, put up every year with discount stores doing knockoffs of their designs and merchandise. As Elicia has told me, designers cannot copyright their designs, at least not yet. So why does Gwen think she's so different and special in this regard? When Stella McCartney did the horse silhouette thing, and everyone from high end stores to Old Navy copied her, she didn't get all huffy and sue. And yes, Diane Von Furstenberg is suing Forever 21 too, but she's Diane freakin' Von Furstenburg; She and Gewn are worlds apart in the fashion spectrum, however huffy that might make Gwen feel if she heard it. Methinks Miss Stefani has a big head, no? Below is a very good explanation of why designers cannot legaly copyright their designs, which I found in the comments section here:

"Copyright protection is denied to garment designs due to the fact that garment designs are solely useful articles without any copyrightable elements. Useful articles are granted limited protection under the Copyright Act, provided there are elements of the pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work that may be identified separately and can exist independently of the utilitarian aspects of the article.[6] Since 1914, several bills[7] have been handed down to Congress advocating the protection of the designs of useful articles through copyright.[8] Such protection of garment designs has always been opposed, however, for to do otherwise, would arguably grant protection to a purely utilitarian article and pave the way for a monopolies in the apparel market."

I would argue that garment designs have no "copyrightable elements"; surely the logos or elements on them could be protected to some extent, and that would be fine. And while I do think it's unfair that designers cannot copyright specific designs that are obviously theirs alone, I do get where the legal channels are coming from. The trickle-down effect of fashion, as so eloquently explained by Miranda in The Devil Wears Prada, might be affected profoundly (and yes, I'll include the whole quote, neh):

"This... 'stuff'? Oh... ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff."

If the Furstenburg/Stefani suits are successful, yay for the fashion world's designers. And if not, yay for the millions of people for whom knockoffs of colors/patterns/design elements are a staple of their wardrobe.

(And no, I'm not a total Gwen hater, for the flaming fangirls out there; I loved Tragic Kingdom and No Doubt's ska sound a lot (still do!), and respected Gwen at the time; she seemed fun and feminine, yet strong and proud. And while I got annoyed when she did the whole sell-out pop thing, what can you do? She's not the first, and I get the lure of money thing. But I REALLY got annoyed when she started using four Japanese girls in a modern day minstrel show (ITA w/ Margaret Cho; she just needs them to dress up in ganguro fashion and the look will be complete), and had the gall to defend herself for doing so. She doesn't even allow them to dress in real Harajuku style, or give them the dignity of using their real names or having any personalities or speaking in English if they want; shame on her. Because she pays them, that makes this behavior ok? There's very little about them personally out there; here's some stuff at wiki, and this is the only site I could find that goes into them individually at all. But props to the Gwenihana blog; between that and Disgrasian at least there are some rational voices out there.)

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Sorry I haven't blogged much on any site lately! I've been prepping materials for 3 big work-related events, two of which take place this Saturday, wrapping up freelance stuff and ushering. Oh, and prepping my house for a roomie. =) Lots to do, not enough time for fun. But I'm pretty relaxed at the moment.