Yesterday's legal victory for Karen Millen against Dunnes Stores, the first of its kind in Europe under the new European Union design rules, is unlikely to stem the flow of cheap designer imitations either at home or worldwide. Deirdre McQuillan, Fashion Editor, reports.
Copying is deeply embedded in the fashion industry, as in many other businesses, and has a long history; many would argue that design piracy actually makes consumers buy more.
Such is the pace and access to information in today's media and manufacturing industries that a lookalike copy of a fashion original is barely a click away from the high street consumer, a far cry from the day when reproductions of Paris couture were only affordable by a few.
A popular feature of modern fashion coverage is the design original shown beside the cheaper imitation, particularly in websites like ASOS that encourages the trend. Dunnes Stores is not alone in attempting to keep up with fast changing styles, nor the first to produce lookalike versions of expensive design items.
Last July, Top Shop had to withdraw duplicate copies of Chloe dungarees and pay £12,000 in legal fees.
However, the Dunnes Stores case may be important in raising the stakes for big retailers inclined to "pirate" more expensive designer versions if faced with public embarrassment and enormous legal costs. Global companies with massive budgets have the power to tackle copying of this nature, though continuous enforcement is an issue if each offending item must be challenged in the courts.
It is harder for smaller designers to tackle the problem. Christopher Kane, one of Britain's hot young designers, will be unlikely to take action against a blatant copy of one of his original designs currently on the market. Two years ago, Irish knitwear company Inis Meain succeeded in making an Italian company withdraw sweaters copying their patterns, but the cost of preventing wholesale copying worldwide is well beyond their resources.
Some designers welcome counterfeiting and copying. Both Prada and Marc Jacobs, designer of Louis Vuitton, are on record as saying they welcome it.
Most luxury companies, however, have big legal departments fighting counterfeit designs. But as one Irish designer said yesterday: "If you're being copied you must be doing something right. You just have to keep on being more creative."
It is important to distinguish between counterfeiting, an object masquerading as the real thing, which is illegal, and designer knock-offs, which are inexpensive versions of originals.
Though theoretically it is far easier to establish counterfeiting than knock-offs of trends like skinny jeans or wrap dresses, there is still a problem in establishing what is original in a clothes design, given that so much is often reworking of styles from previous decades.
Some would argue that the extent of cheap knock-offs simply makes people buy more and puts nobody out of business. Others like Karl Lagerfeld, Roberto Cavalli or Stella McCartney for H&M, or designers for Top Shop, produce their own inexpensive lines to satisfy the demand for signature looks. The real story here is that with clothing on a deflationary spiral, people are being conditioned to expect more for less.