Slippage

I slipped mightily over the weekend because of an unholy closeout sale and then at a shoe store where I purchased the last pair of heels that fit me like a dream at a third of the original price. It would appear that the shopping gods deemed it necessary for me to serendipitously find those heels and an amazing stock of clothing at the closeout sale with my sizes still available.

In Knockouts of Knockoffs, concepts of artistic copyright over fashion are discussed against today's world of nearly perfect copies. It is not just the average consumer that can be duped but also stores like Daffy's who purchased hundreds of Gucci fakes -- they are *that* good. At the closeout sale, I find stylized tops that I've seen countless times at other places but at Mervyn's, who bats an eye? The marked down price tags and the obscurity of these brands is enough to convince me to spend my tip money.

A similar incident happened while shopping years ago between Forever 21 and Wet Seal. I noticed a dress in Forever 21 with a very specific pattern in the fabric. It was a spring dress and I can't recall the style but in mere minutes, I traveled a few stores down to Wet Seal and found the exact pattern on another spring dress. I waved my sister over for confirmation and it was indeed, the exact same dress. We read the tag, went back into Forever 21 to compare prices and places of manufacture -- totally different. But who cares? Is there a qualifying amount of money spent or quantity bought, or perhaps the clout that comes with the brand, that requires legal action to take place and even extra effort exerted by the authorities to stop what could be considered a victim-less crime? If such is the case, then it would appear that fashion has transcended the original artistic endeavor to a game of who has a bigger pair.

However, Decker points out that there is a mafia involvement prompting action by the authorities in Italy who recognize bigger and more dire crimes. So again, it takes the involvement of specific groups that are not originally involved in fashion for counterfeited items to be a serious problem.