Moreover, the Economist‘s arts mag’s blog (?), has a good post on Sen. Schumer’s (D-NY) idiotic legislation against fashion knockoffs. Beyond the standard complaints about how these knockoffs allow fashion to trickle down to people who can’t afford couture (I hope I’m using that term correctly), I was intrigued by the idea that we could create a whole new class of constabulary, charged with busting fashion copycats!
Wouldn’t it be great? Instead of having courts deal with $54 million lawsuits over drycleaners’ liability for lost pants, courts could judge whether the pants’ silhouette was too similar to a design from Paris. We could have a meter on how many homages constitute theft! Think of the possibilities (without ripping off anybody else’s thoughts)!
Maybe it’s a silly idea, and we should just focus on the idea that fashion should be out of reach of the hoi polloi. In that case, I get to break out the scanner and offer up some of my favorite comic-book panels of all time:
All panels copyright 1992 Peter Bagge.
