Tag: Ralph Lauren

Categories
Accessories Footwear General / Musings Textiles Womenswear

MoMA: Is Fashion Modern?

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is currently hosting the exhibit, “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” So, what is modern? Back in 1944, the MoMA asked, in an exhibition titled, Is Clothing Modern? in the hope of inspiring museumgoers to, “reconsider their relationship with the clothing they wore.” Today, MoMA asks: Is fashion modern? to provoke thought about the world’s relationship with fashion and to examine how and why it is made. In this exhibition, we see fashion born out of creativity and necessity; created by man and machine. The museum’s elevation of both the evening gown and the flip flop illustrates society’s multifaceted relationship with fashion, clothing, and art.

The curators walk you through the history of fashion, using fashion as a lens through which to view and analyze culture and society. Upon entering, I was pleasantly surprised. The galleries, sparsely but carefully filled, teased visitors with vivid colors, sounds, textures, and interactive displays. The exhibit progresses chronologically and also practically, by starting with base layers like undergarments, switching to classics like the little black dress, then working toward wardrobe fundamentals such as pants and later on, accessories.

Underwear starts out not to be a simple thing. Brassieres, stockings, and then jumpsuits pique visitors to contemplate form, function, and aesthetic. Subsequently, the exhibition moves to khakis, trousers, and collared shirts. This casual wear showcase also highlights how pants have evolved for women. With images of a pants-clad Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Mary Tyler Moore in capris on the Dick Van Dyke Show in the 60’s, the exhibit’s wall labels provide gender-charged commentary on how pant suits became socially acceptable for women.

The exhibit moves forward to a survey of the quintessential little black dress. Just within the exploration of the little black dress, one can see the evolution of fabrics, design, class, and social custom. This collection contains a range of dresses from Christian Dior to Thierry Mugler; starting with a modest Chanel evening dress from 1925 and ending with the controversial, close-fitting Versace cocktail dress worn by Elizabeth Hurley in 1994. The exhibit even highlights the relationship between technology and fashion by including a 3-D printed dress designed via a form of classical mechanics and motion called, kinematics.

Next, fashion is studied as an extension of culture. The collection exalts prints, fabrics, and silhouettes from all over the world, showcasing an anthology of Indian saris, Cuban guayaberas, Ghanian gowns, Brazilian jumpers, and Dashikis inspired by Nigerian prints, yet made right in Harlem.

Flanking one side of the exhibition is a spotlight on men’s suits. The stylistic progression goes from the zoot suit to the power suit, and even a double-breasted pant suit by Ralph Lauren for women. The wide range of tailoring, fabric, and shape is also a reflection on style, age, and class.

After covering each major piece of clothing, the exhibit moves on to highlight accessories. What some may consider superfluous or merely decorative additions, the accessories prove to be staples on their own. This collection looks at show-stopping shoes, handbags, hats, furs, and jewelry. The curators even established a small homage to the famous Hermès Birkin bag and Alexander McQueen’s platform armadillo boots, as worn by Lady Gaga.

But wait: there’s more. The exhibition has small fashion asides where one can find a biker jacket derivative made from polymers and LED lighting, and a textile designed through a computer-programed knitting machine.

“Items: Is Fashion Modern?” is indeed a modern take on fashion. After examining the entire 111 items, it is impossible to walk away uninspired and unprovoked. The curators do an excellent job of covering a wide range of subject matter, addressing the fundamentals of fashion, and examining where fashion is purely aesthetic and less functional, yet nonetheless enthralling and important. The exhibition demonstrates the complexity of fashion, as it can serve as adornment, a reflection of culture, or counterculture. If modern is to reflect the present and recent times, then yes, fashion is modern.

The Museum of Modern Art exhibit, “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” runs through January 28, 2018. https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1638

Credit:  Candace R. Arrington

Candace Arrington works in Phillips Nizer’s Intellectual Property, Corporate, Fashion, and Entertainment Law Practices.

Categories
Accessories Intellectual Property Menswear

The Skinny On Ties

Urban Bicyclist w Bow Tie - BW

We have commented here before that the necktie is the surviving element of the male wardrobe that is purely decorative. If it is true that form follows function, there is no prescribed form for an accessory that, by definition, is completely without function. For that reason, you can make it a classic neck to waist cravat, go for a Pharrell bowtie, or go for a turquoise-clasped bolo — at least if you are from the West.

Cloth ties can come in any width, as long as you can close them and they do not rub into your face or flap into your arms. When I was young, my father was friends with George Goldman, a legendary New York necktie manufacturing impressario, back when most ties sold in the USA were made there. I remember when my father came home from a meeting with George, bearing a fistful of thin neckties –only to note, not long after, that they had slipped out of fashion. The Mad Men age was over, taking with it the thin tie and long-accepted business terms such as “career girl” and “make it a double.”

Ties next grew wide, to the point of obesity, during the following decade. And then, thanks to the temperate good taste of designers such as Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren, ties went to the gym and trimmed down. And then, wouldn’t you know it: the thin tie, now known by its workout-sanctioned name of the skinny tie, returned, along with thin lapels.

Because it has become tough to say what is “correct” in business wear of late, those of us who pay Man Skinny Tie - Face Hidden - BWattention to these things keep two tie collections, one in the moderate ninety-centimeter width of the classic Kiton seven-fold and the other in the anorexic sixty centimeter width of the just-discontinued Brooks Brothers Black Fleece line designed by Thom Browne. And to think: all that fuss over something that most men working in offices and classrooms do not even make part of their daily wardrobes anymore.

This rolling in and out of necktie widths throughout the decades illustrates another key element of fashion law: it is of no matter if you were the first to bring back the skinny tie or even if you found a way to make them from thermal-insulated cloth for inclement winter days. You will not get intellectual property protection for the shape and other physical characteristics of any tie in any form that we know at this time that the market will accept. However, it is still possible to obtain protection on the pattern of the tie fabric, if it is truly unique. Considering the way that trends go and come and that, in the 1970s, chunky ties appeared with elaborate printed scenes to fill out their broad canvases, if your vision is of a complete Tahitian village or perhaps of a new interpretation of the Judgment of Paris, your day may soon be here. And if your designs are truly unique, you can register your copyrights. Those neckties will not have any more use than the ones you see today, but their designs will be exclusively yours.

Credit: Alan Behr

Categories
Business Law

When The CEO Must Go

American Apparel fashion store on April 23, 2013 in Manchester, UK. American Apparel was founded in 1989.

The bankruptcy and attempted reorganization of American Apparel demonstrate not just that fashion is a risky business but also that, in bad times as well as good, it brings into play some unique considerations. First among those is that fashion businesses tend to arise from the unique vision of one or a very few individuals. That is true as well for tech startups, but except for a few software geniuses (such as Mark Zuckerberg), entrepreneurial masters (such as Bill Gates) and brilliant marketers (such as Steve Jobs), once a tech business gets going, skilled replacements are relatively easy to find.

That is not the case when the founder and guiding light of a fashion business is also its chief designer. As even well-established brands have demonstrated, bringing in a new designer who understands a brand’s signature looks and who can add his or her own vision while somehow keeping all that fresh (and keeping loyal customers purchasing) is not an easy feat.

The situation at American Apparel was ironically even more complicated because much of the trouble started when its founder, Dov Charney, was forcibly removed. More of a businessman than the creator of a signature style (American Apparel was all about ever-cool basics made in the USA), he dominated the company. He made a failed effort to return; and while everyone involved focused attention on that, the business lost its vision and too many of its customers, and then slid into receivership. That might have happened anyway, but the disruptions caused by the long-running Charney episode may well have been the tipping point.

It all serves as a reminder that, in fashion, getting a clear and effective legal structure into place as early as possible, with understandable methods and procedures for personnel transitions and successions, could potentially be a business-saver. True, Ralph Lauren, that grand warrior for American gentlemanly style, simply and graciously stepped aside as CEO of his company, letting the business keep running, apparently seamlessly, from there. But legal planning is not about expecting the best; it is, unfortunately, about hoping for the best while planning for the worst. And when it comes to fashion and the people in fashion, that is nearly always a prudent way to go.

Credit:  Alan Behr

Categories
Business Law Intellectual Property Licensing Menswear Transactions Womenswear

Designers Defending Their Names

FashionShow-Catwalk-ModelsPose

If you are interested enough in fashion to be visiting this page, I cannot tell you anything new about Roy Halston Frowick, better known as Halston. He was unique in many ways, starting with the fact that he launched his career with a single piece: the pillbox hat that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration as president, in 1961. (The fact that Mrs. Kennedy was also wore a Halston pillbox while sitting in the car next to the president as he was assassinated, in Dallas, led to the style going out of fashion in the blink of an eye.) By 1983, Halston’s company, Halston Limited, was owned by Norton Simon, Inc. Unless Halston had agreed to all that at some point, the likely explanation was that there had been no form of what lawyers call a non-assignment clause in place in the relationship that Halston, the man, had set up with the owners of Halston, the brand. In any event, within about one year, Halston was no longer designing for Halston Limited. He died in 1990, a man without his own name in design. Once that disassociation occurred, Halston, the brand, which still exists, has a life of its own, and it has since changed hands seven times more.

Catherine Malandrino recently filed a lawsuit against Elie Tahari and others, claiming she was wrongfully deprived of rights under a deal by which she sold her brand (and, for all intents and purposes, her professional name) to a company controlled in part by Tahari, which employed her as its creative director. Malandrino had only minority representation on her new employer’s management committee. She alleges that her co-venturers and others routed around her in subsequent dealings, damaging the brand and failing to compensate her as agreed. Although the complaint is passionately composed, it does not directly address what appears to be the underlying issue: Malandrino and her representatives did not provide, in the agreements she signed, the kind of contractual protections that could have reduced or eliminated many of the alleged wrongs and that would have given her final say as to what was and was not a Catherine Malandrino creation.

On a happier note there is the long, circular tale of Joseph Abboud. His eponymous menswear line debuted in 1987. His name was registered as part of trademarks that he licensed to a joint venture in which he took an interest through a corporation he owned. He then sold off his equity interest and worked as a consultant to the company that now exclusively owned his name in the fashion business—until creative differences caused an abrupt. Abboud tried to start a new brand called “jaz,” making it known in the trade that he was the designer. In the lawsuit filed by the company that owned the Joseph Abboud trademarks, the court ruled, “Abboud is permanently enjoined and restricted from using her personal name to sell, market, or otherwise promote, goods, products, and services to the consuming public.” In all, a humiliating result for one of my favorite menswear designers. Several sales of branding rights and changes in price point later, man and brand were effectively reunited; in 2014, Abboud became chief creative director at Men’s Wearhouse, which is the current owner of the Joseph Abboud brand and trademarks.

And we must not forget that there are many success stories. Karl Lagerfeld is still a walking brand, regardless of whatever house for which he has already has served or may yet serve as designer. Ralph Lauren’s name is owned by his company, which is public and so owned by many shareholders—but he has set up everything quite nicely and is surely not losing sleep worrying about whether he will still be designing under his own name.

The message: every good designer is either a good business person or should work in close company with someone else who is just that—and every good business person watching over a designer’s name should have a lawyer nearby who knows what to do to keep the designer and his name permanently in each other’s company.

Next: we will show a bit of how that works.

Credit:  Alan Behr

See previously published related posts:

Categories
Accessories Menswear

The Blogger Blogged

Alan-Behr-Ralph-Lauren-Purple-Label-NYSocialDiary2015

As everyone knows, lawyers have far too many stellar qualities to enumerate here. We have a sense of humor. (Who can forget, after all, the priceless nugget of wit that goes: “What do you call one hundred lawyers on the bottom of the ocean?” Answer: “A good start.”) We are sure there must be just as many good ones about chiropractors, occupational therapists and entomologists.

And lawyers are media stars. Whenever an attorney is convicted of a felony in the line of duty, doesn’t it always make headlines? Lawyers are also highly respected for their assertiveness, as knows any lawyer whose application to rent an apartment was mysteriously and inexplicably denied.

But who knew that lawyers could also be fashion trend-setters? So it appeared from a blog several months ago, in which the author of this blog was blogged. The post was in the form of a column about accessories worn by attendees at the charity benefit held on the opening night of an antiques fair.

The site is New York Social Diary, in which David Patrick Columbia, combining the roles of Edith Wharton and Henry James for an earlier generation, chronicles the real life moments that those earlier writers drew upon for much of their fiction. The blogger in the guest column was Alison Minton, a friend and queen of New York style, who reports for the site on accessories. In my debut as a fashion icon, you can clearly see the Ralph Lauren necktie and pocket square that were the objects of the author’s attention, along with a fair bit of the Henry Poole bespoke suit that they accented and almost none of my face. As my earlier appearances in New York Social Diary and elsewhere have shown, that omission was no loss at all to the reader. It did, in this instance, force all attention on not who I am but on what I had chosen to wear in the expression of who I am. It demonstrates in pictorial form that what each of us holds as our personal style is both a part of us and an abstraction of us. We are what we wear, but what we wear is also a part of us and a metaphor for how we wish to be perceived.

It also reminds me that, as someone who will on occasion take this forum as a soapbox on which to stand and proclaim what is and is not good style, acting as a fashion authority is uniquely hard work. A theater critic need not act or direct; an art critic is not expected to paint or sculpt; but we all wear clothes. A style critic, therefore, is always in danger of being held accountable for his or her own style success and failures. (And we all have both, to be sure.) This line of work is not for the faint-hearted—but neither is any job in fashion and accessories. Would any of us have it any other way?

Credit: Alan Behr

Categories
Accessories Childrenswear Footwear Licensing Menswear Womenswear

License to Kill (Your Business)

Licensing represents an opportunity for a fashion brand founded on one or a small number of product lines to stretch into almost any clothing, jewelry, beauty or accessories category—and beyond.  Moving into a broad range of products and services has been an especially successful strategy for luxury brands.  Consider that Ralph Lauren started as a maker of men’s neckties and that Hermès began as a maker of harnesses for carriage horses.  Although you sometimes hear the saying that, “No one ever got rich licensing a brand,” licensing can be a useful, even necessary tool to build brand awareness among both old and new classes of customers.  When you leap into categories that have specialized production requirements, unique distribution methods or simply just high barriers to entry—consider timepieces, fragrances and eyewear—licensing is about the only sensible way to make it happen.

Dynamite with Clock 183758650_8-2

But what is a legal article without a warning about pitfalls?  (Just as designers are paid to create and merchants are paid to awaken and satisfy customer desire, lawyers are paid to worry.)

  • For the licensor, a key concern is that its licensing agent or licensees themselves may prove unmotivated or unable to bring the brand’s image to new product lines.  A licensor can find itself devoting an inordinate amount of time to servicing the product development needs of its licensees—to the point that, in extreme cases, the licensor can start to feel as if it is working for its agent or licensees.  On the other hand, licensees’ successes may kindle the temptation to over-license, risking dilution of the brand.
  • For the licensee, pitfalls can include disapprovals of products by the licensor that result in missed shipping dates, lost markets or revenue, confusing or incomplete branding direction or support (especially after a change of control at the licensor), and all the potential dangers that come from devoting your business to enhancing the goodwill of someone else’s brand.

Any one of those concerns can cause serious—and in extreme cases terminal—problems for participants in the licensing game.

In subsequent posts, we will review the ins and outs of licensing in more detail.  As with a good story, where the art is in the telling, with a good license, the art is in the drafting.

Credit:  Alan Behr